A new bunch of math text books slated for implementation in Texas was werefound to have 109,263 errors. Apparently, in Texas, the publishers are fined $5000 per error. That comes out to $546,315,000.
The publisher, Houghton Mifflin, is working hard to correct the errors....
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Next time you reference a six-sentence article, would you mind reading it first?
Thanks ever so very much!
Yeah, it's actually 164 textbooks.
How could one math book hold that many errors? Ah, it's many books.
Moral of the story: Hire a free-lance editor.
I once ran into a fellow editor on the subway. He was pulling little scraps of paper out of his pockets and making notes. I asked him what he was doing, and he said he was editing a textbook. Apparently, those scraps were the manuscript he was given!
I assume the size of the potential fine was worked out in a neighbouring state.
Hey, that averages out to 666 errors per textbook.
Coincidence?
Textbooks of the Beast!!
free-lance editor here:
The original version is correct: "a bunch" is the subject of the verb, so the proper conjugation is "was". A bunch {of books} WAS to have errors. I know it sounds odd...
Compare to "A pile of books was sitting in the driveway."
The best way to avoid this ugly grammar is to avoid it:
"n books were examined, and they contained a total of m errors."
BTW: were they written by "cintelligent design proponentsists"? They're always good for redefining reality.