Thursday, September 3, 2009

Ilinois*, Illinio*, Illinoios*, Illinos* (for Illinois)

Chicago and Illinois have been in the press a lot this year, between our difficulties with Gov. Blagojevich (be careful with his name, too) and Chicago vying for the 2016 Olympics. An earlier post discussed errors related to the city name, but there are also a number of mistakes related to the name of the state that you should avoid and remove. It's easy to miss one of the "L"s (especially next to that capital I!), or add an extra one and both "io" and "oi" look like possibilities. They have varying levels of probability in the Ballard database, from B to E. Given how many options there are for misspelling, I recommend taking one last look before you save.

Image of our disgraced governor in better days from Wikimedia Commons.

Liz Perlman Bodian
Chicago Public Library

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