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We are specialized in packing, and I have a client Email to me as below:

. . . do you over shrink-wrap service or is it included in the price?

He uses over here, what does he mean?

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4

This is a typo or misspelling of "offer" – nothing more or less.

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  • Oh,yes, this makes sense. Thank you! +1 – user51225 Sep 6 '13 at 3:33
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    Vote up requires 15 reputation. – user51225 Sep 6 '13 at 5:21
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    Oh, right. Sorry! – James McLeod Sep 6 '13 at 9:34
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    This answer might be correct; however, it's worth noting that, in packaging, there is shrinkwrapping, which is also known as overwrapping. Conceivably, then, the inquiry could be a carelessly worded question about whether overwrapping/shrinkwrapping will cost an additional fee, or if it's included in the quoted price. It's hard to tell for sure, with such a small excerpt provided in the O.P.'s question. – J.R. Sep 6 '13 at 10:55
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    That's an interesting possibility which never occurred to me. Could be. – James McLeod Sep 6 '13 at 18:39
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We cannot know for sure, but over is statistically rather more likely to be a typo for cover that merely left off the c- than it is for offer, whose edit distance is much further away.

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  • Much farther away? (1 vs 2 assuming Levenshtein_distance.) Furthermore, does your probability model incorporate the keyboard layout (proximity of the letters v and f), or the pronunciation similarity? I like your answer because it offers a valid alternative, but my immediate thought was also that it was a typo for offer. – iterums Sep 6 '13 at 12:32
  • @iterums It really depends on how you weight your edit-actions. I agree that key proximity should matter, since we’re talking about fumblefinger likelihood here. – tchrist♦ Sep 6 '13 at 12:39
  • This could be a post-spell-checker typo: offer is easily mistyped as ofer, then the wrong correction is accepted giving over. – Chris H Sep 6 '13 at 13:02
  • In the case of a human's fumble-fingered typo, I'd lean toward this theory: cover - c = over, with no resulting red squiggly line underneath. However, if it was a mistake made by speech recognition software, I might lean toward the other theory: ˈôfər ↝ˈōvər (or, if you'd prefer, ˈɑfər ↝ˈoʊvər), particularly if the speaker was talking fast and failing to enunciate clearly and carefully. – J.R. Sep 8 '13 at 9:43

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