Terrr* (for Terr*)

In a 2008 documentary about RKO Pictures' horror honcho Val Lewton, Martin Scorsese discusses what set this writer-producer apart from your average shockmeister. While frustrated in his low-budget, B-movie niche, Lewton made nine films that "moved and spoke in a different way." They "satisfied the demand for horror, but they delivered much more," says Scorsese, adding that "horror is what causes physical revulsion; terror is what causes fear." In the movie Cat People, no one fears Irena's feline leanings more than the catlike character herself, played by Simone Simon. Val Lewton had that certain something extra that could turn an ordinary walk in the park into something eerie and dark—and turn ordinary entertainment into art. Today's typo has an extra R in it, drawing out the syllable the way Lewton drew out the suspense (which all started with Irena drawing pictures of a panther at the zoo). There were 22 instances of Terrr* in OhioLINK this morning and, while only a couple were actually typos for terror* (this one covers a lot of territory), you never know what might be lurking right around the corner.

(Simone Simon in the 1942 Lewton classic Cat People, from Flickr.)

Carol Reid

Minature*, etc. (for Miniature*)

What is your favorite miniature motion picture? Which is not to say a low-budget indie, or one that comes in at under two hours, or something you can watch, kind of, on your iPod, but rather a movie about little people. (Apart from congenitally small humans, this term is also applied to "wee folk" of the U.K. and Scandinavia: faeries, elves, trolls, and the like; downtrodden, uplifting citizens in a Capra-esque world; and Fisher-Price toys.) Is it the wonderful Wizard of Oz? Or perhaps Tod Browning's long-banned and misunderstood Freaks? Could it be The Terror of Tiny Town ("the world's only musical Western with an all-midget cast")? What about the 1957 sci-fi classic The Incredible Shrinking Man, or the Irish-inspired Disney product Darby O'Gill and the Little People? Maybe it's the 1989 blockbuster Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, or (a personal favorite) the soapy Lily Tomlin satire The Incredible Shrinking Woman. If you look hard enough, you can find some serious stuff on dwarfism too, such as 1982's acclaimed documentary Little People. The most frequent typo for the word miniature* is Minature*, which turns up a mighty 75 times in OhioLINK. We also get five hits on Miniture* and two on Minaiture*. This is an example of a typo group largely driven by misspelling, not simply miskeying. The word sounds like it's spelled "mina"; its meaning suggests "mini" (see also minuscule); and "minai" indicates an awareness of the correct spelling, but an inadvertent reversal of letters, perhaps because ai is a more common English grapheme than ia is.

(Portrait of George Pearson, director of The Little People, 1926, from the British Film Institute's screenonline website.)

Carol Reid

Youself (for Yourself)

Today's typo is Youself and I daresay it's one that you may have made yourself. It finds itself 34 times in OhioLINK, which makes it a "high probability" typo on the Ballard list. Youssef Wahbi (Wahby)—or, according to NACO and with all the diacritics intact, Yūsuf Wahbī—was a famous Egyptian stage actor and matinee idol in the 1930s and '40s. In fact, he continued to make movies (starring in, writing, and directing) right up until the late 1970s. I've never seen any of his fifty-odd films, but I love the names of some of them: The Spoiled Children, or Sons of Aristocrats (1932), The Hour of Fate (1938), A Suitor from Istanbul (1941), A Sleepless Man (1949), The Marital Dwelling (1954), The Small Angel (1958), The People Downstairs (1961), A Husband's Confession (1965), How We Stole the Atomic Bomb (1968), Searching for a Scandal (1973), Alexandria...Why? (1978). Upon delivering a Devil of a performance in 1945's The Ambassador of Hell, Wahbi wanted to try his hand at playing Muhammad too, an idea that was foreseeably forbidden by his culture and religion. As a young man, Wahbi renounced his family's wealth in order to pursue an acting career in Rome. He was beloved throughout Europe and the Middle East, where he protested the old colonial and sexist traditions and promoted the theatrical arts. Please take it upon yourselves to correct all occurrences of Youself in your library catalogs.

(Portrait of Youssef Wahbi from Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid

Tommorrow*, Tomarrow*, etc. (for Tomorrow*)

Our typos for today are for the word tomorrow and they appear to comprise two different kinds of errors. The more common one arises out of confusion over the consonants preceding a change in syllable: Are there two M's there or one? Is that one R or two? The second type apparently stems from familiarity with the word marrow, as opposed to the somewhat antiquated morrow. There are 58 instances of Tommorrow* in the OhioLINK database, 22 of Tommorow*, and eight of Tomorow* (two of which are proper names). Moreover, we found nine cases of Tomarrow*. Some people like to simplify their spelling by cutting straight to the marrow ("Melvil Dui" was one of those, though his elisions were made with purposeful zeal), whereas other people tend to pad their words with superfluous letters. At any rate, catalogers need to be both consistent and correct, so why put off till tomorrow any edits you can get started on right now?

(Mmmm, as Homer Simpson might say, bone marrow fat ... or Knochenmarksfett, from Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid

Gazeteer*, Gazzette* (for Gazette*)

The son of Sicilian immigrants, actor Ben Gazzara grew up on the Lower East Side of New York, a neighborhood no self-respecting homeboy should ever need a gazetteer to locate. He was the original Brick in the Broadway production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and went on to make quite a few films in Hollywood. True to his roots, he often played "tough guys" in the movies and claimed his early interest in acting shielded him from a teenage life of crime. Gazzara had a steely gaze that could also melt ice—or anything cold and hard on the streets of the city. This was a man who conducted a tender love affair with the self-doubting Audrey Hepburn on the one hand and plotted a daring escape from Czechoslovakia with The Man from U.N.C.L.E.'s Robert Vaughan on the other. Ben Gazzara is undeniably cool and leaves the admiring viewer both shaken and stirred. Although an OhioLINK search on Gazete* returned too many foreign words to be of much help, we got 79 hits on the typo Gazeteer* and 13 on Gazzette*.

(Portrait of Ben Gazzara by Carl Van Vechten, 1955, from Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid

Foudat*, etc. (for Foundation*)

I guess I'm a little late with my New Year's Eve salute, but let's raise our virtual glasses to the Typo of the Day, anyway. The somewhat inebriated-sounding Foudat* bubbles to the top of the OhioLINK database 13 times, along with an assortment of related misspellings and truncations: Foundaton* (which gets the biggest response with 27 hits), Foundai*, Founa*, Foundt*, Foundatin*, and Foutai*. In order to lay a solid foundation for the upcoming new year, one should always try and toast it with a quality libation. Although some folks are predicting we'll see darker days ahead, we may as well drink up in any case. As Napoleon once observed (and with thanks to Salon.com): "In victory, you deserve Champagne; in defeat you need it." Cheers, everyone!

Foudres de chêne, or oak casks, filled with champagne by Louis Roederer, from Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid

Firts or Frist (for first)

Today is the last day of the week and the first day of the year. First is a word you just have to be careful not to type too quickly, or you are likely to invert some letters. Firts occurs a number of times in OhioLINK and over 300 times in WorldCat. Frist can also be a misspelling, but could also be a proper name, so watch out before fixing it.

First thing this year, make a resolution to fix as many typos as possible in your catalog!

Liz Bodian
Chicago Public Library

Image of George Washington, the first president of the United States, from Wikimedia Commons.