Thursday, January 8, 2009

Sciene* (for Science etc.)

On this day in 1958, 9,000 scientists from 43 different nations signed a UN petition for a nuclear test ban. Nuclear weaponry was also the motive for Klaatu’s visiting the earth in his flying disc (from The Day the Earth Stood Still, based on the short story by Harry Bates, "Farewell to the Masters"). This also marks the birthday of Stephen Hawking, who some maintain rivals Newton in out-and-out smarts. "There’s a lot of physics out there," he said, as he gazed up to the heavens. Many years have passed since then, allowing for many a typo to creep into the catalogue.

If sciene* were not enough, there has been an atomic proliferation of typos with this word. Not a two-fer today, not even a three-fer, but, darst I say, a four-fer! OhioLink lists 32 for Sciene*, 21 for Scientf*, 32 for Scientic*, and 34 for Scientifc*

These come from the B or high probability list in Typographical Errors in Library Databases
found at http://faculty.quinnipiac.edu/libraries/tballard/typoscomplete.html

Your mission is to zap 'em out, just as Gort does.




Cary Daniel

(Image of Gort from Google Images.)

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