Mono Lisa (for Mona Lisa)

The Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci’s portrait of the woman Lisa del Giocondo, is one of the most famous paintings in the world, striking its blend in colours and lines between landscape and sitter. The painter set a new standard for portraits during the Renaissance and after.

But did you know that Leonardo’s choices for the Mona Lisa also influenced the clothing worn by the subjects of paintings? In his Treatise on Painting, he stated:

As far as possible avoid the costumes of your own day.…Costumes of our period should not be depicted unless it be on tombstones, so that we may be spared being laughed at by our successors for the mad fashions of men and leave behind only things that may be admired for their dignity and beauty.

Something tells me Leonardo da Vinci would not have appreciated high school yearbook photos from the 1980s.

Leanne Olson

Oxgen (for Oxygen)

Before the discovery of oxygen, 18th century scientists believed in the phlogiston theory: all combustible substances contain phlogiston, a mysterious substance that is freed during burning. When wood, for example, is burned, phlogiston escapes and ash remains. Phlogiston was also used to explain the oxidation of metals—rusting occurred when phlogiston was lost to the air.

What made this theory unlikely to some was the difference in weight: when wood burns, the remaining ash weighs less (implying that the escaping phlogiston has some mass) while when metal oxidizes, it does not.

With the discovery of the element oxygen, this theory was discredited by Antoine Lavoisier in the late 1700s. It makes me wonder just how many beliefs we hold today that may one day be proven wrong.

Oxgen is a low probability typo for oxygen.

Leanne Olson

Pinao* (for Piano*)

The piano was invented in the 18th century, likely by Bartolomeo Cristofori. He named it the gravicembalo col piano e forte, meaning “harpsichord with soft and loud,” referring to the pianoforte player’s ability to vary the volume of the notes s/he is playing.

Playing the piano requires dexterity precision and I wonder, do pianists make fewer typos than non-musicians? Judging by my own typing errors, the answer is no—but then, I’m not exactly a virtuoso on either type of keyboard.

Pinao* is a high probability typo on the Ballard list, occurring 37 times in Ohiolink and over 400 in Worldcat. With the asterisk, this includes pinaos and pinaoforte.

(Piano photo from Wikimedia Commons)

Leanne Olson

Anniversay (for Anniversary)

One by one
Only the good die young
They’re only flyin’ too close to the sun
And life goes on
Without you
- from No One But You (Only the Good Die Young) by Queen

November 24, 1991 is the anniversary (not anniversay) of the death of Queen frontman Freddie Mercury, from pneumonia brought on by AIDS. While Mercury was not open about his HIV status until the day before his death, his experience and subsequent AIDS awareness tribute concert put on by Queen did a lot to raise awareness of the disease.

Mercury is also considered by Time Magazine to be one of the most influential Asian heroes of the past century, Rolling Stone ranked him as one of the top 20 singers in rock and roll--incredible achievements in his too-short 46 years of life.

(Statue of Freddie Mercury in Montreux, Switzerland - photo from Last.fm)

Leanne Olson

Nineteeth (for Nineteenth)

Have you ever had one of those dreams where, one by one, your teeth fall out? Many dream interpreters say that the loss of teeth represents a feeling of powerlessness or anxiety, or sometimes a fear of growing old or death. These dreams can take a variety for forms, including the teeth crumbling into sand, rotting, or falling out one by one.

I think that if I woke up with only nine teeth, I might throw a bit of a fit. Something like the Rolling Stones’ 19th Nervous Breakdown, perhaps? To ease my worries, I might pop down to the golf course and have a few drinks at the 19th hole (also known as the clubhouse bar).

Nineteeth is a high probability typo on the Ballard list, appearing 39 times in OhioLINK.

(Tooth diagram from Wikimedia Commons)

Leanne Olson

Potatoe (for Potato)

Michael Pollan's book The Botany of Desire was the basis for a recently aired program on PBS, which purported to show how "four familiar species—the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato—evolved to satisfy our yearnings for sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control." Yeah, I thought upon reading that, the potato is kind of controlling. Think about it. It's got all those eyes watching you all the time. It goes with almost everything: "Do you want fries with that?" And, unlike the more live and let live tomato, it can carry the dreaded "late blight" over from one season to the next—something I learned this year as a novice community gardener. Plus, of course, it won't let you hold the remote when you're sitting on the couch. One potatoe, two potatoe, three potatoe ... make that 33 of 'em recently in OhioLINK. Some of them are probably written that way on the piece itself; others may be variant spellings from the 1700s. (Dan Quayle spelled it like that, even though he was only from the 1990s.) When the word is plural it correctly takes an e. My favorite potato "poem" was found on a shipping box in the local food co-op. I think it went something like this: Yucca Taro / Sweet Potato / Ruby Taro / Beet Batata.... You say po-tay-to, I say po-tah-toe, let's spell it with the e left off!

(Heart-shaped potato from Germany, dug up on Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid

Glossay, Glossry, Glosary (for Glossary)

Often you can tell what a word means simply by seeing it in context; other times you'll need to check the glossary. If you were reading about house painting, for example, you might find this definition for gloss listed in the back of the book: "A surface shininess or luster; polish or sheen." Paints are usually designated according to such a scale (gloss, semi-gloss, or flat). But some manufacturers take it even further in terms of nuance, bandying about such sensual-sounding but mystifying descriptors as silk, suede, eggshell, platinum, pearl, melamine, velvet, and satin. You may not find good definitions for these words on the back of a paint can, but when it isn't enough to just say "gloss," you can always consult the MPI standards. Glossay appears five times in OhioLINK, Glossry another five times, and Glosary ten times, making them all semi-glossy typos of low-to-moderate probability.

(Peeling paint at a New York City subway station, from Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid