Improtan* (for Importan*)

I wanted to make today's typo Improt* (for words like import or important, etc.), but when I went to go and search for it, I found I was getting far too many hits on the Italian surname Improta. (All four entries for Improta in Wikipedia are for Italian soccer players, three of whom are brothers.) So I'll leave it up to you: you can start out with Improt* and then, if you like, move on to narrower searches like Improt, Improts, Improting, and Improted. Although frankly, I didn't have a lot of luck with any of those—your best bet is probably Improtan*. I'm not sure whether Italian "football" fans are as rowdy as some of the sport's other so-called hooligans, but I did get a chuckle out of the misprint appearing above this image of a soccer jacket: "31 inches long on the back, just bellow the collar." Improt* (like a bellowing collar) turned up 27 times in OhioLINK (twelve of which were for the last name Improta), and 704 times in WorldCat. We also got fourteen hits on Improtan* in the former database, and 315 in the latter. Score!

(Italian soccer jacket, 30 May 2008, from Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid