Thursday, May 13, 2010

Pulbic* (for Public*)

The closest I could come to a decent pun on today's typo was the mathematical term pullback. You can look it up if you like, but suffice it for me to quote directly from Wikipedia: "The notion of Pullback in mathematics refers to two different, but related processes: precomposition and fiber-product." Its "dual" (which I suppose means its opposite) is either pushout or pushforward, depending on which "notion" you're referring to. It all puts me in mind, a little, of the Doctor Dolittle character the pushmi-pullyu, a cross between a gazelle and a unicorn with two heads facing in opposite directions. (This helpfully allowed the pushmi-pullyu to eat and talk at the same time without violating etiquette: "Our people have always been very polite," says one.) There were 24 cases of Pulbic* in OhioLINK this morning. Put your heads together and push (or pull) this typo out of your own OPACs.

(Portrait of Hugh Lofting, the author of Dr. Dolittle, courtesy of Wikimedia.)

Carol Reid

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