As any user of word processing software knows, the search-and-replace function can be invaluable — and quite literal. Consequently, when an e-book translation of War and Peace for Barnes & Noble’s Nook e-book reader changes every instance of kindled (eight in the entire book) to Nookd, I have to laugh. The prevailing theory is that Superior Formatting Publishing, the company that submitted the public domain book to Barnes & Noble, realized they had mistakenly said “Kindle” (Amazon’s competing e-book reader) instead of “Nook” in their submission, and did a quick search-and-replace — which obediently replaced every instance of kindle with Nook. An example: “It was as if a light had been Nookd in a carved and painted lantern…” Tolstoy must be turning in his grave.
OMG, what idiots! 🙄
No, I’d say rushed, inattentive, careless, inexperienced, or something along those lines. In far smaller, less public forums, I occasionally made similar mistakes. You learn very quickly to double check what your computer has done.
Oh…my…gosh. They have to be so embarrassed.
If they care at all about their business, they are mortified. I disagree with the comments on other sites that suggest this was done intentionally as a joke or something malicious or part of some deliberate effort to change the content of great literature, although it does suggest that we must guard against unintentionally changing such things. Today’s technology makes it frighteningly easy to introduce mistakes and distribute them very widely and quickly. It’s another reason to cherish dusty old painstakingly produced bound books (says the dusty old editor who used to produce them).