Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Selective Reading

I have a reading problem. I call it "Selective Reading" and my father also suffers from it. An example:
NEW YORK, March 10 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Daily Beast founder and editor-in-chief Tina Brown and The New York Times media columnist David Carr discussed the current state of the publishing industry and its need to adapt...
When I read "The Daily Beast" above I read it as "The Daily Breast". The Daily BREAST? I thought it was a website advocating support for breast cancer. It's not. It doesn't exist. I wanted it to say breast so that's what I read.

When I moved to East Cambridge a jillion years ago my family was driving down Cambridge Street towards Inman Square. "Look!" I said. "Casual Bakery!"

"Yeah! Casual Bakery!" my father agreed. "It looks good!"

Um. Yeah. It wasn't Casual Bakery at all. It was Cafe Casal Bakery. Are we idiots? NO! Do we suffer from Selective Reading? YES!

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