Do proof readers exist any more?

[stillcrazyafterall]

Not exactly a pedantic post but I know you will understand!

I read. A LOT. I am becoming more and more frustrated and disillusioned with the level of mistakes in books. Printed ones. By big companies. I read one the other week where 'she looked threw the window' I kid you not. I am currently reading ' A Foreign Country' by Charles Cumming. Excellent book, but I got annoyed when the main character 'racked his brains'. FFS this is happening in pretty much every book I read! I think I will start leaving reviews on Amazon and Good Reads with the glaring errors mentioned. Anyone else?

We've just got a new headteacher at our school and her grammar is shocking. Meetings are peppered with things like "I've wrote that down" or "I should have went over that" etc.
Before she sends a newsletter home, she emails it to the staff asking us to check for spelling or grammatical errors

@Mycatismadeofstringcheese

We had an email from school only today,

“Children must bring there water bottles….”

I know you're talking about an email that should definitely be correct but I've caught myself out quite few times using the wrong 'there/their' in quick email replies. I think sometimes we type what we're hearing in our head and slip up.

Absolutely, people make mistakes. We are only human. I know I make lots of errors in my own writing. That's why it's important to get it checked before you send it out or publish it.

I work in publishing. The pay is not great, and I know it's an issue the company I work for needs to address as it affects staff retention. I often have to read the content we publish for other reasons and often spot typos. Sometimes I'll mention them if they are glaring and we are at a point in production where it ought to have been picked up but as it's not my job I feel a bit awkward.

While I agree many books have spelling and grammar mistakes, or use words wrongly, I don't think this is a new thing. The Enid Blyton books I used to read as a (pedantic) child 40 year ago were riddled with spelling mistakes, missing words, sudden name changes and the like. I was just reading a book about Burns this morning published about 60 years ago and it spelt rhyme as ryhme in the introduction. Also, lots of the books I read my children are my own childhood copies, and I keep coming across typos, repeated paragraphs etc.
What annoys me the most is a stream of dialogue with no names, so you have to count back to find out who is speaking - and then discover the author has also lost track so the same character says something, then also the next quote, without any "he added", thus throwing the whole conversation into disarray. I don't know if I have described that properly!

@RaraRachael

We've just got a new headteacher at our school and her grammar is shocking. Meetings are peppered with things like "I've wrote that down" or "I should have went over that" etc. Before she sends a newsletter home, she emails it to the staff asking us to check for spelling or grammatical errors

...and when you've checked for her do you send her a hefty bill for your services? Does she have a degree?