Labrator* (for Laboratory)

Tired of the rat race? Of toiling for tories? Of labored spelling puns instead of just getting to the point already? Okay, okay, don't be so thin-skinned. Our typo for today is Labrator* and, not to be a brat about it, but we found 20 of these running through OhioLINK, which makes it a "high probability" typo on the Ballard list. Here we have an example of words that are pronounced somewhat differently than they're spelled (in the US at any rate; speakers in the UK tend to land on every syllable, or at least on different ones). Such words are often (mis)spelled in accordance with the way they sound. (Week-old lab rat clutching a coin—"Another maze, another dollar!"—from Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid