Thursday, December 25, 2008

Chrsitmas, etc. (for Christmas)

Well, don't just sit there. It's Christmas. Ian Fairclough searched high and low and found the presents—er, presence—of quite a few typos today. Let's see, in descending order (that is, with increasing truncation), we get Chrsitmas three times, Chrsitm* four times, Chrsit* 52 times, Chrsi* 54 times, and Chrs* a whopping 108 times, involving related words like Christian and Christianity. No matter how many times you say it, or how many ways there are to spell it, the spirit of Christmas is still beyond words. As my grandmother used to softly sing in German: "Stille Nacht, Heil'ge Nacht, Alles schläft, einsam wacht..." Here is to all of you calm and bright catalogers, and a merry Christmas from all of us at Typo of the Day for Librarians!

("Old Father Christmas in a New Character," looking down and out in an 1875 edition of the Canadian Illustrated News, from Wikimedia Commons.)


Carol Reid

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