Typographical personification

Typographical personications are usually better known by a myriad of colorful and fanciful names, such as Typo fairies, Typo demons, and the like. They are fictional characters commonly used as an explanation (or excuse) for typos. Though mostly known nowadays for their appearances from word processor documents to instant messenger, the joke originated with 19th century printers and typography, who (good-naturedly) blamed all their mistakes on various fairy, dwarves, and gremlins.

=Types=

*Typo Fairies: Typo fairies are usually described as being either small, winged and luminous, or invisible, and as sporting a mischievous mindset. They are invoked as an explanation for typos (typing mistakes, misspelling and the like), usually mentioned as I just got visited by the typo fairy. *Typo Demons: Typo demons, unlike the fairies, tend more often than not to be referenced by gamers, often during fast-paced online chat sessions or the like; for example, in an MMORPG, if someone accidentally typed sord and meant to type sword , they may then add Sword* , with the assumption by others that this was a mistake. Note that this does not apply to intentional mistakes, such as l33tspeak. A variation of this exists in German language as Fehlerteufel ( error devil ).

Titivillus: In Christian mythology, Titivillus is a demon in the employ of Satan whose job is to ensure that monks in the Middle Ages made errors or omissions on Holy Scripture.

*Tryckfelsnisse ( Typo elf , here elf has the same meaning as Santa Claus elves): the Swedish language moniker for the Typo Fairy. *Painovirhepaholainen ( typesetting mistake devil ): Finnish language equivalent of the Typo demon, known to have existed at least since the 1920s. The word itself has often been (intentionally) misspelled, resulting in countless humorous variations such as painoviher ( print green ) to pianoviehe ( piano lure ). Similarly, Dutch language references the Zetduiveltje ( little printing devil ). *Chochlik Drukarski ( or a printing press. *A nyomda ördöge ( devil of the printing house ): A Hungary Typo demon, which is made responsible for all mispellings and other typographical errors.

=In fiction=

While no known fiction deals with any of the creatures, there have been several Internet forum that have been devoted to them, as well as online art gallery [http://elfwood.lysator.liu.se/art/j/o/joost2/typofeary.jpg.html][http://elfwood.lysator.liu.se/art/s/a/saber/0typodemon.jpg.html].

=See also=

*Gremlin *Typographical error *Scapegoat

=External link=

*[http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A1049979 Titivillus: the Typo Demon], BBC, 29 May, 2003