In Yorkton Provincial Court, Judge Patrick Koski spoke to a high school class about his role as a judge. One of the things he said involved how he has a job where everything he does is recorded constantly, so if he makes a bad decision or is having a bad day, it winds up on the record.
In that way, this job can feel a bit like being a judge.
Naturally, I have made mistakes in my time, whether major or minor. The most irritating of those mistakes are words that I misspell consistently, always in the same way. These are also the typos that I have a really difficult time catching, because somewhere in my brain the correct spelling has been wired in wrong.
The worst of those is when the word in question references a genocide. I have never spelled Holodomor correctly the first time. I have to constantly go back and correct it, and the m and the d get switched around like they’re in a curious dance with the o between them.
The weirdest of these was someone in the community who I had, inexplicably, become convinced was named Peter when he was not named Peter. I still have to double check every time I talk to him. His real name does not sound or look anything like Peter, so if he found out I am referring to him he would be very surprised.
It’s interesting how the mind stubbornly holds onto ideas that are objectively wrong, whether it’s the spelling of a word or a view of the world in general. But the most interesting of those is when you cling to an incredibly minor wrong idea and just can’t shake it no matter how hard you try.
My first memory of this was my pronunciation of the photography brand “Kodak,” which I inevitably pronounced “Kodakak.” The origin of the extra syllable is a mystery to this day, and quite embarrassing given my interests later in life, but there it was. And no matter how much my brothers made fun of me for it, and no matter how much I knew it was incorrect, I still kept pronouncing the word as “Kodakak.” It made no sense then, and it still makes no sense. But now I’m 32 and somewhere in the back of my mind there’s still an “ak” that wants to come out whenever I feel like ordering film.
The obvious solution for saving myself from embarrassment is to just order from alternate brands like Ilford and Fuji. Speaking of embarrassment, whenever I type that an r flees into the distance, and needs to be corralled and placed firmly back into the word where it belongs, with its twin brother.
This isn’t meant to beat myself up over a few typos, but more point out that it’s a fascinating part of the human brain, how it can somehow give itself the wrong information and then be incredibly stubborn about giving it up. I am sure everyone has something in their life that they know they’re wrong about but can’t shake. Hopefully, it’s something minor, like the spelling of a word or whether or not someone is named Peter. When you’re stubbornly wrong about something important, that can do much more serious damage.
