Taylor Swift's "Errors" Tour Book
Taylor Swift has recently made headlines—not just for the record-breaking success of her Eras Tour, but also for the accompanying "Eras Tour" commemorative book. While fans were thrilled to get an inside look at her historic journey, the book quickly gained a reputation as the "Errors Tour" due to a significant number of typos, formatting issues, and other publishing mistakes.
The backlash has been notable, with fans and readers pointing out inconsistencies in captions, misspelled words, and even repeated or misplaced text throughout the book. Despite being a visually stunning keepsake, the errors distracted from the storytelling, leading some to call for reprints or corrections. It’s a reminder that even a superstar-backed project can fall victim to the pitfalls of poor proofreading and editing.
This is a good opportunity to remind everyone taking the bar exam to watch their spelling in their essay and performance test responses—whether those misspellings are the result of just bad spelling or an overzealous autocorrect feature.
While state boards of law examiners might state that their graders do not consider misspellings as they are reviewing examinees’ responses, it’s just natural for them to do so.
Take the warning from the Tennessee Board of Law Examiners for example:
“While the essay examination is not an examination in grammar, spelling, or writing style, the cogency and coherence of your reasoning and discussion are being tested."
So, here’s a warning: Don’t misspell names that are given to you in the test question. Don’t misspell case names of opinions given to you in the performance tests. Pay particular attention to misuses of plurals and possessives and commonly misused words like “its” and “it’s.” While examiners will likely not deduct points for these mistakes, careless errors might cause the examiners to spend extra time reading your response to find more substantive problems throughout your response. And you never want examiners to spend more time reviewing your responses than they need to.
What are some commonly misspelled words that you might encounter on the essays? Here are some misspelled words I’ve noticed over my years of teaching (with the common misspellings in parentheses):
📖 Agency
Principal (not “principle”)
Respondeat superior (not “respondent superior”)
📖 Civil Procedure
Collateral estoppel (not “collateral estopell”)
Joinder (not “joiner”)
Res judicata (not “race judicata”)
Supplemental (not “supplementel”)
📖 Conflict of Law
Erie doctrine (not “Eerie doctrine”)
📖 Constitutional Law
Imminent lawless action (not “imminant lawless action”)
Statute (not “statue”)
📖 Contracts and Sales
Guarantee (not “garantee” or “guaranty”)
Parol Evidence Rule (not “Parole Evidence Rule”)
Statute of Frauds (not “Statutes of Fraud” or Statue of Frauds”)
📖 Corporations and LLCs
De jure corporation (not “de jury corporation”)
Dissociation (not “disassociation”)
📖 Criminal Law
Actus reus (not “actus rea”)
Embezzlement (not “embezzelment”)
Mens rea (not “mens reus”)
📖 Criminal Procedure
Plain view exception (not “plane view exception”)
Waiver (not “waver”)
📖 Evidence
Admissible (not “addmissible”)
Marital communications (not “martial communications”)
Relevant (not “relevent”)
📖 Family Law
Marital property (not “martial property”)
📖 Partnership
Dissociation (not “disassociation”)
Remuneration (not “renumeration”)
📖 Real Property
Adverse possession (not “adverse posession” or “adverse possesion”)
Conveyance (not “convayance”)
Covenant (not “covenent”)
Covenant of seisin (not “covenant of season”)
Foreclosure (not “forclosure”)
Quiet enjoyment (not “quite enjoyment”)
📖 Secured Transactions
Accession (not “acession” or “accesion”)
Judgment lien creditor (not “judgment lein creditor”)
Repossession (not “reposession” or “repossesion”)
📖 Torts
Res ipsa loquitur (not “res ipsa loquitor”)
📖 Trusts
Cy pres (not “Cyprus”)
Settlor (not “settler”)
📖 Wills
Anti-lapse statute (not “anti-laps statute”)
Codicils (not “codiciles”)
Holographic wills (not “halographic wills”)
Intestate succession (not “interstate succession” or “intestate succesion”)
Per stirpes (not “per stripes”)
Pretermitted children (not “pertermitted children”)
Taylor Swift’s "Eras Tour" book reminds us that even the smallest mistakes can disrupt a narrative. Don’t let similar errors mar your bar exam essays or performance tests. A little extra proofreading can go a long way toward ensuring your work shines for all the right reasons.
