Thursday, March 12, 2009

Mediaval (for Medieval)

"He who is born in imagination discovers the latent forces of Nature. . . . Besides the stars that are established, there is yet another -- Imagination -- that begets a new star and a new heaven." This was spoken by the medieval alchemist Paracelsus. Medieval is likely one of the most butchered words in the English language. Searching Google for "Midevil" brings in more than 90 million hits, although some of those are surely deliberate. Today's word Mediaval brings to mind an image of journalism in the middle ages - that would have been the town crier. It brings in a mere 5 million records in Google. OhioLINK is much more rigorous, so only 3 of these made it to their catalog. That qualifies for the 'D' or, low probability section of Typographical Errors in Library Databases.

Today's picture shows the spectacular walls of the medieval city of York in England. We were there at the height of spring in 1975. The original can be found at www.pbase.com/terryballard/image/77741958

1 comment:

da HOOK said...

OCLC Connexion shows 27 records for kw: medievil although some are spelled that way on the source