12 THE TECHNICAL WRITING HOUSE OF HORRORS
One of my favourite examples of a technical writing disaster is fictional, but very funny: in the fake rock documentary This Is Spinal Tap, the guitarist’s plans for a Stonehenge stage set are written perfectly, but he uses quotation marks (for inches) instead of the single apostrophe for the measurements in feet that he actually meant. Cue cowled figures dancing around what looks like a tiny garden ornament.
Unfortunately, real-world examples aren’t quite so entertaining, as the ‘million-dollar comma’ case (see the next section) demonstrates. I’m presenting these as confidence boosters: everybody makes mistakes – that’s why reviewing and editing is so important – but I bet you won’t make mistakes as ...
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