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Musharraf's book full of typos, factual errors
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's much-discussed book In the Line of Fire is full of typos with the Pakistani capital spelt as "Islam Bad" and the Indian prime minister as "Manmo Ham Singh".
There are other factual errors galore and dates and events are mixed up, even as fury over facts and figures and their appropriateness and objectivity continues at home and abroad.
Apparently, the computers at Musharraf's publishers, Simon and Schuster, went haywire between Asian names and their American spell-alikes.
The publishers have not spared the Pakistan prime minister either. Shaukat Aziz has been spelt variously as "Shuakat" and "Shaukut", published twice on the cover jacket.
Nor for that matter Pakistan's great friend and neighbour China, that is spelt with a small "c" in the caption that shows the visiting Chinese head of the state taking the salute.
Right under Musharraf's signature, the capital from where he rules Pakistan has been spelt "Islam Bad".
This may end up reinforcing the "Western conspiracy" theory among the conservatives in Pakistan.
The Indian prime minister has his name Manmohan turned into Manmo "Ham" (whatever that means) in the captions of his pictures published in the book while his name is correctly written in the text pages.
Likewise in the pictures section, Pakistan's great friend Prince Karim Aga Khan has been renamed Prince Kasim Aga Khan, says a report from Washington in The News International.
It says the New York publishers "are seriously embarrassed and hiding from the media because of a number of publishing, spelling and grammatical mistakes in the famous book".
Asked over telephone on Wednesday as to who was responsible for these mistakes, the writer or the publisher, the New York-based editor of the book, Bruce Nichols of Simon and Schuster, who has been duly acknowledged by President Musharraf, "almost panicked".
The report adds: "He started saying something to the effect that 'we are supposed to correct the spellings' but then asked whether this response was on or off-the-record.
When told that the mistakes were being listed in a story, he immediately said he was not the company spokesman and could not go on record and the company spokesman would contact The News with a response."
However, the response was still not available even 24 hours later. Contacted again on Thursday, he provided the name of one Tarisa Hays, saying she had a response. Hays, however, was reluctant to answer.
Another Pakistani writer, who has also published his book in the US, told The News it was rare that such spelling mistakes were found in high profile books by world-class publishers like this one.
"The publishers send the final version of each page to the writer who has to approve it with his, or his agent's, signature before that page is included in the book.
But common language and spelling mistakes are for the proof readers of the publisher to detect and correct, while the writer would have to correct the factual mistakes, if any."
Grammatical mistakes and loose expressions also abound in the book.
On page 32 while the definite article is missing before "most muscular physique", on page 285 the phrase "the world holds its breath at our every confrontation" or on page 336 the line "The Drug trade is an international ill", or on page 337 the words "international comity of nations" do not make good reading. There is an international community or a comity of nations.
"Simon and Schuster could have done better," says the report.
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