"Typos are very important to all written form. It gives the reader something to look for so they aren't distracted by the total lack of content in your writing" says Randy K. Milholland.

T-Y-P-O-S! 

The word can literally make or break things in the industry that we function. While being grammatically uber-correct is insane to demand, but there are many jobs that typically depend on being correct or rather 'spelling-out' things correctly. To give a simple example, say the healthcare industry, and so on. This was just a small illustrative example to show how a syllable here or there can turn around human lives.

But let's quit the scary part for now.

Coming into typographical errors, a simple mistake can actually turn around your professional missive into a laughing stock. And none of us want to taze our clientele, right?

To quote the most interesting typo error of all times probably is that of our Big Daddy- Google.

The mega-search engine has come to be known as Google by chance. Did any of you know that? It was a happy accident so to say; since the original domain name was supposed to be Googol (aww, how Russians would have rejoiced!) but was registered mistakenly as Google. But that did not deter its functionality in any way. According to a Harvard research team, Google "earns about $497 million each year from everyday people mistyping the names of popular websites and landing on “typosquatter” sites… which just happen to be littered with Google ads". Now that's what is called as a bugger's luck!

But not everyone is blessed with such typographic luck. Here are some of the serious mistakes that went bad, I mean really bad.

1. NASA'S Missing Hyphen

Who would have thought a small hyphen could make such a lot of difference. Well it actually did for NASA, who incurred a whopping $80 million damage in 1962. While coding the space mission for Mariner 1, America's first inter-planetary probe mission, a minor missing out of a hyphen saw the craft explode minutes after it launched into the sky. Author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur Clarke tagged this as the "most expensive hyphen in history".

2. eBay's Antique Ale Auction

It is rather a sad case of an extra "p" spoiling the game for a seller. In a peculiar case, a seller was auctioning his 150-year old beer. In a miscommunication that ensued in the listings, the bottle was auctioned off for $304 and again resold for $503, 300 in a fast tracked transaction. Well the typo was that the bottle was listed in the rare Allsop's Arctic Ale category. The resultant loss for the e-commerce site was $502, 996.

3. Wicked Bible

This is an interesting one, quite old and heard of by many. In 1631, a London-based book house- Baker's, published the time-honored 10 Commandments.  They printed "Thou shall commit adultery" wrongly that got the then Parliament roaring. Declared as the Wicked Bible, all the copies were destroyed systematically and a fine of 3000 pounds was slapped against the publisher. Now that's what we call being eternally slapped!

4. Racist Pasta

Well how can something like a mouth-watering, cheese-drooping pasta indulge in racism or disgust? Only if there was a typo. In 2010, the Australian food book- The Pasta Bible, published a "make-do" pasta dish with "salt and freshly ground black people". Although not much hue and cry was made, yet the publisher withdrew the existing copies (7000), off the racks to incur a good $20,000 loss.

5. Davilar Mess up

Juan Pablo Davila is probably a name Chile's economist smirk at.  In the nascent stages of e-commerce, Davila- a copper magnate- was employed by the government owned Codelco. In a mess up at the stock market, Davila literally went on a buying and selling trade rampage that cost the Chilean government $175 million. While Davila was fired immediately, Merrill Lynch had to face a lawsuit for alleged brokering tie-ups with Davila's stock case. The company had to shell out $25 million dispute against Chile to peter out the tensions. Since then "Davilar" has been incorporated in the language to signify major screw ups.

6. NYC's Ministerial Blunder

In 2006, New York City's Comptroller, in the Department of Education- William Thompson, typed out a extra letter that led to a software malfunction. Due to this, the documents were misinterpreted, leading to a imbalance in spending on transportation.  The reported loss was $2.8 million, instead of the regular spending of $1.4 million.

7. X-Rated Exotic Vacation 

This is a case that happened a few years ago. Sonoma, a California-based travel agency marketed its travel destinations ad through the Yellow Pages. Instead of typing "exotic destinations", the ad was published as "erotic destinations", that attracted unwarranted clientele for the company. Although the printer offered to keep the ad on at a slashed rate of $230 per month, the company filed for a lawsuit worth $10 million.

Words and the punctuation within can be a mighty hole-digging affair as these cases show. Hope none of you do such shilly-shallying in your professional careers.

Do let us know of any unique or funny incidents of such a nature that you have come across.

So avoid typographical tragedies and stay tuned with E-junkie for more such reads.