Editing - What about misspellings?

Question

Everyone's typing posts in here, or touching the screen of some techy-touchy device. (Exceptions not included; the point is, no one's writing) So, we can get typos.

Imagine a situation where a good question is being asked, and a better answer is being given. You start reading the answer, and suddenly see something like:

They are the responsible compounds for the bad smell of water, and hey are what we've been trying to get rid of.

[This is just an example]

There's that "hey" which should be "they" and is raising its ugly head in there!

What should an editor do about it? Edits are supposed to be substantial, and in contrast, that little error is still there. I just got to a 1000 rep (WHOOHOOO) and I'm set to do a heavy job of editing, but this should be solved first.

Hey, if you want to say that such a thing doesn't happen, I've seen the case and am asking for it now.

Answer 1

Such things do happen, and it's okay to correct them.

The fundamental thing to bear in mind is that edits bump a question back up to the top of the front page. This is largely so others can vet them and make sure that they are okay, but also to allow a question a second chance through the system. Making 2 letter edits for the sake of racking up your edit count isn't cool, but that's not what you are doing here. You are making a post more readable and clarifying the language.

However, never just fix a typo and be done with it. Even in that sentence alone, the structure could be cleaned up a bit to make it more readable, and there are probably other adjustments to the post that will make it as close to perfect as possible. So, if that edit is going to be bumped to the front page anyway, get some mileage out of it. Just make sure you are respecting the intent of the original author and not injecting too much of your own style into the writing.

So, whip those typos into shape, but make sure and attend to everything else that needs to be taken care of in the post as well.