Misss*

It was recently pointed out to me that I missed posting a blog entry on Wednesday, May 9. My Misss-take. But one that I shall rectify right here and now. A good many proper names and other words begin with M-I-S-S, but even really long ones with cool mnemonic melodies to go with them (M I double S I double S I double P I) don't properly have three S's all in a row. You know what do, though? German words. One of these, turning up numerous times in our database search today, is Missstände, translated as "grievance." However, there is no need to file one with the spelling police: Germans apparently don't mind this sort of thing a bit. And someone else who liked seeing his letters all in a line—perhaps the more, and more orderly, the better—was a little geek, er tyke, I used to read to while he would invariably listen with rapt attention. While barely more than two years old, he surprised us one time by reciting Miss Spider's ABC after only having heard it read a couple of times. "M, moths mingle!" he murmured with childlike confidence. "N, net-wings nap... O, owlflies ogle..." and so on and so forth. Today's typo was found 32 times in OhioLINK, and 1324 times in WorldCat.

(Cover of Miss Spider's ABC, by David Kirk, from the Open Library website.)

Carol Reid