Muphry's law

9.9

When you write about proofreading or editing, you often make a mistake yourself

noun
/ˈmʌfriːz lɔː/

Jargon

: ley de Muphry

Every time I send out a newsletter about typos, Muphry's law ensures I make one myself.

Examples

The revised document fell victim to Muphry's law when an obvious error slipped through.
Editors laughed as Muphry's law appeared in the correction column.
Have you heard of Muphry's law?
According to Muphry's law, errors are inevitable.
Whenever I write about editing, Muphry's law seems to strike, making sure my text is not error-free.
While discussing proofreading techniques, I realized I had illustrated Muphry's law by missing a typo in my own writing.
In her article on grammar, she inadvertently demonstrated Muphry's law by including multiple errors in her edits.

Surface Forms

Muphry's law singular

Muphry's laws plural

Morphology

Muphry's + law

The expression pairs the opaque, non-dictionary proper name/pun 'Muphry's' with the generic noun 'law'; knowing 'law' but not the coined name gives no basis to infer the specific meaning about proofreading corrections containing errors. This is an eponymic, culture-specific coinage (a play on 'Murphy's law') whose intended sense requires prior exposure, so it is not derivable from its parts.

Etymology

Muphry's law comes from a joke on Murphy's law: someone wrote the name wrong on purpose to make the point. The idea is that when you write about editing or fixing 'typos', your own text often has a mistake, so the misspelled name gives a clear picture and explains why the phrase means corrections often produce new errors.