Tradmark* (for Trademark*)

Trad is usually short for the word "traditional" and is often applied to the realm of folk music as a way of distinguishing it from contemporary folk music, although what is currently "contemporary" will eventually become "traditional," it seems. (The difference may also have to do with whether a musician is performing original material or "traditional" material.) Alan Lomax, who was born in 1915 and died in 2002, was an American folklorist and ethnomusicologist, following in the footsteps of his father, John A. Lomax, with whom he started out recording the songs of prisoners and sharecroppers in the Deep South. Lomax was a musician himself, as well as sort of a musical philosopher, contributing theories known as Cantometrics, Choreometrics, and Parlametrics to the academy. However, he really made his mark on the world of folk music by becoming a prodigious "field collector" of both songs and oral histories, ultimately contributing, along with his father and other collaborators, over 10,000 recordings to the Library of Congress, where Lomax was "Assistant in Charge of the Archive of Folk Song" from 1937 to 1942. Among the now-famous musicians he thus conferred archival immortality upon were Lead Belly, Muddy Waters, Jelly Roll Morton, Woody Guthrie, Margaret Barry, Jeannie Robertson, and Harry Cox. There were six cases of Tradmark* (for trademark*) in OhioLINK today, and 62 in WorldCat.

(Alan Lomax playing guitar on stage at the Mountain Music Festival, Asheville, North Carolina, from Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid

Realtiv* (for Relativ*)

A friend calls it his "Theory of Relative Absolutes" and claims to have detected three cases of it recently during a single day of television watching: "pretty much exactly"; "slightly original"; and "one of the most unique." Some people would argue that "absolute truth" constitutes a similar solecism (employing a modifier when none is needed), and while I might agree with that, I did once use the phrase "absolute truthiness" in a piece about evolution vs. creationism. (I even did this before Stephen Colbert claimed to have invented the word "truthiness," but that's a story for another time.) Another seeming example of the Relative Absolute is "practically perfect," as in the song lyric from Mary Poppins, who I once dressed up as for Halloween, nailing the look "pretty much exactly." (In any event, I was really sort of supercalifragilisticexpialidocious). On the other hand, it's possible that this is more misguided pedantry than anything else and that, in truth (if not absolute truth), there is nothing wrong with saying "very unique." Given that there are relative degrees of infinity, this point could be debated more or less forever. It shouldn't take you anywhere near that long, however, to find and correct our typo of the day, which turned up five times in OhioLINK and 290 times in WorldCat.

(Logo for the BBC sitcom Absolutely Fabulous, from Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid

Sitation*, etc. (for Situation*)

Yesterday I wrote about the various meanings of the word lousy and then later experienced this ambiguity in comic form by way of an old episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Ted is fake-consoling Murray for having produced only daughters and tells him that some men just don't have enough Y-chromosomes in their sperm to make boys. Ted's pretty sure, though, that he's not one of them. "I'm lousy with Y's," he brags. "Or even without them," Murray notes wryly. MeTV is currently airing a raft of "classic" situation comedies—everything from The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, The Honeymooners, and The Beverly Hillbillies, to The Dick Van Dyke Show, M.A.S.H., and Cheers, along with scores of other old TV favorites. Despite the new fall lineup unfolding on every channel, I'd wager to say that where it's really at is on Me. (Or at least that's what Maynard G. Krebs might say.) There were four cases of Sitation*, three apiece of Sitution* and Situaton*, and one of Situatoin* in OhioLINK (with correspondingly larger numbers in WorldCat). Sit yourself down today and check out the situation in your own catalog concerning these classic typos.

(Photo of Les Brown, Jr. and Marlo Thomas on the television program "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis," from Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid

Lousie (for Louise)

I hope you're all having a good day today. But to tell you the truth, although I usually love this "Indian summer" time of year (every little breeze seems to whisper Louise), for me it's been an exceptionally lousy month. Everything from a sprained ankle to a pinched nerve, a fainting spell, a bad cold, and a superfluity of mosquito bites ... I suppose I should just be glad I don't have head lice to boot! The word lousy has a fascinating history and a multifaceted definition going back several centuries (it was first recorded in Chaucer's Friar's Tale). I was also rather intrigued to learn that louse land was once a "prejudicial name for Scotland." There were 25 cases of today's typo lousing up records in OhioLINK, and WorldCat is lousy with them as well: 452 for Lousie alone and 279 for Lousie + Louise. I know you're just itching to get started on this one!

(Lousy Watchman, or Anoplotrupes stercorosus, June 25, 2006, from Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid

Millett + Millet, or Kate Millet (for Millett)

Kate Millett, groundbreaking lesbian-feminist author and political activist, was born on September 14, 1934. Her most famous work (originally her dissertation at Columbia University in 1970) was called Sexual Politics and it was required reading in college women's studies classes at that time. In it Millett compares and contrasts (and basically blasts) D.H. Lawrence, Henry Miller, and Norman Mailer; she also includes Jean Genet in the mix, whom she admires for his less sexist and more minority gay perspective. In 1965, she married the Japanese sculptor Fumio Yoshimuro and later wrote about her marriage, as well as her relationships with other women, in the 1974 book Flying. In 1979, she traveled to Iran to advocate for women's liberation and was predictably deported; she recounts these events in Going to Iran. Millett is also a filmmaker and advocate for the rights of the mentally ill. In The Loony-Bin Trip (1990), she describes her experience in various psychiatric institutions, her diagnosis as bipolar, and her decision to discontinue taking lithium. She and her lawyer singlehandedly changed the state of Minnesota's commitment law and Millett went on to denounce "psychiatric torture" before the United Nations in 2005. She has attracted controversy as well due to her belief in the sexual rights of children. Millett was a contributor to the magazine On the Issues and was interviewed there by Merle Hoffman in 1988. There were 21 cases of Millet + Millett in OhioLINK today, and nine of Kate Millet. (In WorldCat, we got 194 and 125 hits, respectively.)

(Kate Millett, 1970, from Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid

Compter* + Computer*

I'm sorry to have gone a bit AWOL here recently, but we had a major computer crash on our home PC and I haven't been able to work on the typo blog, or anything else in cyberspace, for over a week now. Sniff sniff. (Actually, the computer and I each seem to have caught a bug that's laying us low.) In any event, the way these Machiavellian machines seem to both run and periodically ruin our lives, it's hard to believe they've only been around for about 25 years. Today's typo is missing a single letter, but sometimes that's all it takes to forever block access to what we want. Compter* + Computer* brings up nine hits in OhioLINK, and 153 in WorldCat.

(One of the first personal computers, from Wikimedia Commons. I love the way this Apple product looks like an early television set!)

Carol Reid

Paiting* (for Painting*)

On the day after so much was lost in an instant ten years ago in New York City, it's strangely reassuring to remember how much was recovered on a chance encounter, 71 years ago today, in the caves of Lascaux, France, when paintings now estimated to be 17,300 years old were unearthed by four teenage boys spelunking with their dog Robot. The cave paintings comprise approximately 2,000 figures: animals, people, and abstract signs, some of which are now considered possibly astrological in nature. Sadly, sightseers have hastened the deterioration of these paintings and promoted the growth of various molds and fungi. In the 2010 3-D documentary by Werner Herzog, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, the Chauvet cave in southern France is cinematically explored. This particular cave is carefully preserved and does not generally admit visitors, which presented numerous challenges for the filmmaker and his crew. There were eight examples of Paiting* (for painting*) in OhioLINK, and 303 in WorldCat.

(Photograph of Lascaux animal painting, from Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid