Cookbok*, etc. (for Cookbook*)

While some typos may be relatively harmless, minor speed bumps on the road to reading, other ones have proven to be recipes for disaster. Take, for example, cookbook errors. It looks like too many cooks would spoil the books (to "b" or not to "b" becomes a critical question, for example, when dealing with tsps and tbsps) and are only saved from icky ignominy by the seasoned eyes of a diligent subset of proofreaders. Despite the best efforts of these fastidious folks, however, such typos have caused heartbreak in the kitchen, and cost publishers thousands if not millions of dollars whenever fooked-up cookbooks have to be recalled. Most of these mistakes are too boring to make the news, but definitely not all of them. And some bakers' blunders are just a little fruity. One writer tells about the time she purchased a pastry made with sultanas and mistakenly labeled "Sultan Cake." Her sister declined a second helping, she says, pointing out that "sultans can be very rich." We found two cases of Cookbok* in OhioLINK today, and 22 in WorldCat. There were a handful of hits on Cokbook* too. You can play around with this one and check for other versions as well, although Cockbook* and Cookbock* only turned up one time apiece.

(Photo from Wikimedia Commons by Paddy Patterson of Ayre, Scotland, 2005, and rather mystifyingly captioned: "i couldnt find anything with 121 written on it, so i made it out of some leftover sultana bread and stuck it in the office scanner (which is all sticky now).")

Carol Reid