Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Matrial* (for Material*)

The most infamous MA trials to have ever occurred were undoubtedly the "Salem witch trials" of 1692. They were updated for modern times, but three centuries later, their spirit remained essentially unchanged in the cases of Bernard Baran from Pittsfield and the Amirault family from Malden, Mass. These innocent souls (along with dozens, perhaps hundreds, of others throughout the country) were tried and convicted of child molestation and devil worshiping in daycare centers, mostly during the 1980s (or, as historians will likely term this decade, "The Hysterical Eighties") when a moral panic swept the nation. Today's typo turned up 12 times in OhioLINK, making it one of "moderate probability." Don't be too quick to find all of these guilty of typographical error (a few of them were foreign words), but do execute swift justice by correcting any examples of Matrial* (for material*) that are witnessed in your catalog.

("There is a flock of yellows birds above her head" is the caption below this illustration accompanying Giles Cory, Yeoman, a play by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, vol. LXXXVI, 1893.)

Carol Reid

No comments: