A crumpled exercise book flaps in her quivering grip high above our desks, like a bird flailing for escape.

Picturing the many blank pages I’ve gladly filled with arty red pen and other squiggles in my spare time at zero benefit to my piggy bank, my eight-year-old self fails to see what the fuss is about. Also, I like fixing wrong things. And so my dream as a professional editor — a matador of mistakes — is born: to live a life where you willingly place yourself at the heart of grammatical onslaught. If only for the acquired taste of teasing order out of chaos. For being able to exhale, “There. That’s better.” And get paid for it.

After all, words are the currency of the human brain, driver and result of our neurological evolution.

So why, when dressing up your brand, personal or professional, would you create the impression that you do not care about your promotional copy?

Perhaps the answer has something to do with the grammatical equal of grooming. Few of us ever fantasise about bumping into an old flame with a post-lunch peppercorn wedged into our front teeth. But it happens when you don’t reach for that toothpick.

Ask US President Donald “I have the best words” Trump. If working optimally, his mental floss might have dislodged a salvo of peppercorns from his Twitter feed before inflicting them on the public eye.

Last week his press office fudged former First Lady Barbara Bush’s death by 12 months. If future humans were to find this press release, they might assume the Leader of the Free Word (I give you “covfefe”) was so callous he had to post-date death in his diary. 

Twitter wasn’t kind to Trump. But then, future humans won’t be either.

The science behind our egregious editing habits

Also this month, one Jake Cartwright unleashed another Twitter backlash for mocking a Mancunian teenager’s grasp of English.

Nicola Hawkins’ Tinder profile claimed she knew her “your” from her “you’re”, yet listed “not you’re average girl” as her unique selling proposition. It was a joke, the teenager insisted.

A recent Guardian Science Weekly podcast offers a more rigorous perspective:

Neuroscientist Cathy Price is an expert in how the human brain processes words. She notes that word recognition uses 99% of the same features as picture processing. When we read, the brain sees the first and last letter. The in-between bits are one big (or small) shape.

Comma the chameleon, my reptilian grammar muse, offers this conclusion from his perch in the garden. If what Price says is true, this must make proofreading – the act of seeing individual letters – a learnt skill for which there seems to be increasingly less time these days.

The pudding’s all about the proofreader

I’m not here to stand sentinel as the all-powerful sleuth of the “sin” in syntax.

Simply to demonstrate that the world is a place of more beautiful veracity when we listen to proofreaders.

Back in December 2007, I was starting as the subeditor of a national lifestyle publication for which I had written an article about Henry Morton Stanley’s meeting with the wayfaring David Livingstone. In noting the year of the event – 1871 – I chose a conversational “’71” by excluding the number “18”.

After receiving a note from the proofreader to “insert the century”, the production controller took it upon themselves to pop the number “19” into the text instead. And so, a defining moment in Victorian exploration was revised by precisely 100 years.

Picture this: Stan and Dave, long-lost pals, bro-hug somewhere on the shores of Lake Tanganyika on November 10, 1971.

All jokes aside, it was Mortonfying. First month on the job. Last time I’d put my byline to a story without seeing the finished product.

The Chameleon’s advice? Read your copy backwards if you can – it refreshes the neurons. Pay particular attention to headings: the ones your grey matter assumes cannot possibly contain typos just because you’ve writ them large across the page.

Whether typing up a Tinder profile or political speech, get a gimlet eye to look over your shoulder.

Always.

You can’t rule the world if you don’t rule the word. DM