Thursday, July 2, 2009

Sliver* (for Silver*)

In today's tarnished economy, a small sliver of silver may soon be worth more than a tall pile of paper. Eleven results were returned for a search in OhioLINK on Sliver* + Silver*. One, for a recording by Fats Waller, renders the title: "By the light of the slivery [i.e. silvery] moon." One appears to contain both words correctly spelled. And in another case, we're faced with either a Henry Silver or a Henry Sliver, although I'm gonna put my money on the first. There may, of course, be other cases of Sliver* for silver* in the catalog, but since both are words in their own right, a combined search is probably the best way to data mine them efficiently. At any rate, I only found pieces of eight, so it could certainly be a lot worse. Remember, while your piece of the pie may be just a tiny sliver, every cloud has a silver lining.

(I like the doting way the uploader describes this picture on Wikimedia: "A small, shiny, freshly refined lump of pure, fine silver metal.")

Carol Reid

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