I am reading an academic article that has been published in a highly regarded, peer reviewed journal. The first time I read this sentence, I assumed they just misspelled glean: "What can be gleamed from the experience of the residents studied?" That's fine. Mistakes happen. Then I am reading further and in the very next paragraph they say, "Can anything be gleamed about what might have contributed to the low turnover rate that would be useful to those considering implementing a residency program?" Two typos in two paragraphs? Much less likely.

Is there another use of gleam that I am unaware of? I then looked up gleam and found that it can be used as a verb in the following way: "To emit a gleam; flash or glow: 'It shone with gold and gleamed with ivory' (Edith Hamilton)." But that doesn't work. Did they just make the same mistake twice? I can't imagine that with all the edits someone could have missed it, but I suppose it's possible.

Or am I missing something?

I'd suspect that the author of the article genuinely thinks the word is gleamed and has used it believing it to be correct.
Lack of decent proof-reading has ensured that no one else has picked it up.

Or am I missing something?

A spell checker? Maybe the author meant gleet. OTOH, I see that gleen is an archaic form of gleam.

When I first read the word I thought it was glearned, like gleaned + learned = glearned.

It think this is one for the eggcorn database.

It's a well known fact that things that glearm are suspected of going bump in the night.

Uh, oh, here comes Jack Nicholson...

Oh, Poltergeist, I can't wait to figure you out on Saturday's chat!

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I'd suspect that the author of the article genuinely thinks the word is gleamed and has used it believing it to be correct.

It's 5 authors, and some of them are very well known.

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OTOH, I see that gleen is an archaic form of gleam.

I didn't even know there was a gleen. Even so, it's not the right usage. I can't imagine that a spellchecker would change a glean to a gleam.

I think with all the fame and education behind the authors of this article, including the technical expertise of the Lippincott editors, this is actually a misunderstanding of the right word. Shu says it's not a misuse of a word (it's too different) and it's not a malaprop (it wasn't being done to be pretentious). If not those 2, what is it? I actually think it's a malapropism because the WordNet definition is simply, "the unintentional misuse of a word by confusion with one that sounds similar." Isn't that precisely what this is?

It is so funny because one of the authors is so arrogant and condescending, and she is well-known way beyond the nursing community for that. Heh! Heh!

I'm not sure it's an eggcorn, because it's not a reanalysis of a fixed expression based on real-world knowledge. It's not a pail, because it doesn't sound the same. It's not a flounder, because gleam and glean aren't semantically similar. I think it's a pineapple.

I think it is a shining example of a malapropism. And as Bob says, it's because people are too lazy, or too, mean, to employ a professional proof-reader.

Why not not write, seemingly innocently, and ask for clarification of the offending paragraph? I once wrote to ATOC (The Association of Train Operating Companies) when I was seeking clarification about ticketing for a manual I was writing. In their reply they talked about a "mullet-box ticket" a type I had never heard of. So I wrote again and they replied, sheepishly admitting that is was an error, "due to improper use of the spell-checker" and what they had meant was a "multi-box ticket". At that time it seems that the Word dictionary didn't include the word "multi"!

If it's not specialized jargon from the field, or an idiosyncrasy of the typeface which makes the n's look like m's, then it's probably just that all those famous authors and editors are ignorant on this point. And they're not alone. I just Googled "be gleamed" and came up with 21,000 hits. That's really annoying. And I'd agree it's an eggcorn, but I haven't yet learmed the differences among pails, flounders and pineapples.

WM

Interesting, Goofy. A pineapple seems to be a type of malapropism, which is what I think it is.

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And as Bob says, it's because people are too lazy, or too, mean, to employ a professional proof-reader.

Richard, this was published in a peer reviewed journal published by Lippincott. Of course they have proof readers. They have professional editors who first send the articles out to several academic peers and then edit it for grammar, spelling, and the like. Apparently it was missed by all, including the professional proof readers.

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Originally posted by Kalleh:
Interesting, Goofy. A pineapple seems to be a type of malapropism, which is what I think it is.

I guess they're all kinds of malapropisms. Eggcorns, pails, flounders, and pineapples are just finer distinctions, for people who are interested in that sort of thing.

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Of course they have proof readers.

You would surely think so, but do you know for sure? You would imagine that all professional journals, national newspapers, instruction manuals, etc., would all be proofed - but it is clear from the egregious errors that can be found in all of these kinds of publications, that they are often not properly proofed.

I am a very literate and accurate writer and I check all my work very carefully using the computer spell and grammar-check, and my own eyes, several times. And I pay to have all my work professionally proofed three times before having it printed. Whereas this would probably be impossible for a daily newspaper it should be possible for the other publications I exemplify.

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You would imagine that all professional journals, national newspapers, instruction manuals, etc., would all be proofed

A colleague of mine once received a review copy of a paper that included a section headed "Chapter 4". He returned it to the editors with the comment "I resent being the second reader of a three-author paper".

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A colleague of mine once received a review copy of a paper that included a section headed "Chapter 4". He returned it to the editors with the comment "I resent being the second reader of a three-author paper".

I really can't see what it was he was inferring that he took such objection to.

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I really can't see what it was he was inferring that he took such objection to

Papers don't have chapters. It was obviously a chapter cribbed from the first author's dissertation and inserted unmodified into the paper, and neither of the other authors proofread the submitted work.

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You would surely think so, but do you know for sure?

Yes. I didn't say they were wonderful, but I am 100% certain they have them because I have communicated with them before.
That is egregrious, neveu. The publishers should have sent it back before sending it out for review.

They probably checked to see if it was from reputable authors (it was) and then sent it off to the usual reviewers without a thought.

I think that simply confirms my belief that very few people read things properly - even those whose job it is so to do. I recall back in the days when I was a manager of a travel agency, part of a chain, and we would receive items from head office for comment. In our region there were 18 offices and I was once told that I was the ONLY manager who ever commented adequately. Most managers simply turned the document around with some comments like, "OK. That's fine" even when it contained egregious errors.

I recall one flyer) that was sent to us (after it had been designed and presumably checked by the highly-paid folks in the marketing team) and it contained the sentence "The best of it's kind". I immediately protested to my superior that I didn't want to send such an item out to my clients who might have thought it was I who couldn't spell - and his response was that I should do it and keep quiet if I knew what was good for me! So I complained then to the head of the marketing team (who just happened to be the CEO's son) and received a somewhat more sympathetic response, suggesting that I should do what I felt was best.

So I, and my staff, spent that evening going through all the flyers obliterating the offending apostrophe with correcting fluid. Not perfect but at least no longer an error.

My attitude towards errors never did me much good careerwise since most bosses don't like boat-rockers and whistle-blowers. They would prefer that such things are ignored in the hope that nobody will notice. They may well be right.