A message came the other day from Peter Fisk, an able editor and a staunch friend, who pointed out a couple of typographical errors on my LinkedIn networking Web site. (I am a vile typist.) He apologized (!) for mentioning the errors.

Not a problem. In one of Rex Stout’s early Nero Wolfe mysteries, to which I have been addicted since high school, Wolfe says, “I love to make a mistake, it is my only assurance that I cannot reasonably be expected to assume the burden of omniscience.”

Every proper copy editor understands that the more he or she knows, the more is unknown. All of us are painfully aware of our fallibility and personal limitations. So correction, the bete noire of the insecure and touchy, is no bugaboo for us. Every correction, however much it humbles us, enlarges the scope of understanding and nibbles at the border of error.