I've never seen (or at least noticed) errors like that before, though. And they don't seem very random. The page that has "SOS" as the page number is the first page in a chapter - and in this book, those pages usually go without page numbers altogether.
And the word "numbers" being in a different font is the really wierd one. That font wasn't used anywhere else in the book, so how did it "accidentally" end up on that one word? And the word isn't even one that would be marked for bold or italics. I don't know if this is standard, but in Steve's drafts he underlines words that will eventually be italicized. That may be left over from the typewriter days (when you couldn't really do an italic font unless you changed the type ball), or maybe it's because the underline is more noticable in the draft than italics might be. When it goes to print, I assume they just have the computer replace the underline characteristic with the one for italics. So although it's a stretch, I thought if this was a similar situation, the characteristic change may have been botched by the computer (and missed during the final editing sweep). But it's not even a word that should have been tagged for any font change to begin with. And why the whole word instead of just a few letters? And why THAT word, and not any of the surrounding ones? The word "numbers" is key in everything that is going on since it's a lot of cryptology. Or could this be part of a clue that points to the book of Numbers in the Bible?
Maybe in his research for the book, Brown discovered the true location (and identity) of the Grail. And he's trying to communicate it to his readers. These changes seem to be only in the most recent edition of the book - even though there should have been no changes between the different versions (granted, however, that Steve insisted on a few corrections to HIS book when the paperback version came out). Brown couldn't do it in the first editions, since people may be combing over that to make sure he didn't give away anything real. But they wouldn't look through *every* edition of the book - so at this point it's safe for him to let out the clues. Or maybe once the book was published, someone else who knows the where the Grail is located got a job at the publishing house so that THEY could plant those clues in future editions.
Hey - I love a good mystery. Even if I have to make it up myself!
But I don't know if I'll pursue this any farther. In today's world, we're more likely to meet disappointment rather than reward. If there is a real code there and I cracked it, I'd end up flipping out if it said something like, "Make sure to drink your Ovaltine." HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
Okay - I'm rambling again. You need to add a way to monitor what people are typing here in real time so someone can IM me and tell me to knock it off and get back to work. <grin>
And then the ravens pecked out his eyes.
it's not in my hard cover edition...
