I love community projects that accept submissions - I just finished reading ‘The Trial’ by Franz Kafka courtesy of Project Gutenberg and right at the end there was this line
The gentlemen nodded, one of them indicated the other with the top hand now in his hand.
which didn’t read right to me (top hand?). The men are introduced as wearing top hats; surely that’s what is supposed to be there. Sure enough, Gutenberg also host a copy of the original ‘Der Prozess’ in German which has the corresponding line
Die Herren nickten, einer zeigte mit dem Zylinderhut in der Hand auf den andern.
which translates to
The men nodded, one pointing at the other with his top hat in his hand.
which is what I expected. Neat - I found an error, and Project Gutenberg has a way to submit these which I’ve now done.
That error, which looks to be an accident rather than a mistranslation, seems to be in every online copy of the book I can find, but that probably just means it’s all based on the same translation source. It’s not a misspelling, so wasn’t going to get caught quickly.
I’m so grateful for free resources like this, but also that they have a way to submit corrections.