Tuesday, February 17, 2026
Sphalmatology
James Willis (1925-2014), "The Science of Blunders: Confessions of a Textual Critic," Text 6 (1994) 63–80:
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At every copying there is the possibility of human error. I say "the possibility", but it is nearer to certainty. Copying is usually a boring task; boredom breeds inattention; inattention breeds mistakes. Therefore the manuscripts of classical authors contain mistakes. The detection and correction of mistakes in texts is the function of textual criticism. Therefore textual criticism is necessary, Q.E.D.
[....]
The first of these inquiries involves what I have called the science of blunders — the name sphalmatology, jokingly invented by the late J.B.S. Haldane, has not achieved circulation, but the study deserves to be an -ology in its own right, and to endow a readership in it would be less waste of money than many things which I have seen done in the academic world.
