Collison (for Collision)

"Movies are a complicated collision of literature, theatre, music and all the visual arts," according to the Australian cinematic philosopher Yahoo Serious. Film buffs of a certain age are likely to remember the date September 30 as the date that James Dean's car suffered a fatal collision on the way to a car race in Salinas, California in 1955. Reportedly, his last words were something like "That guy will stop." We were looking for some form of collision to use on this date but did not see one, so we went shopping in OhioLINK and found a staggering 300+ hits for Collison. This would have made it a candidate for the highest level of erroneousness at our page "Typographical errors in library databases." Typos with more than 100 hits in OhioLINK are few and far between. However, when we turned this in to the listkeeper, we were informed that most of those hits were legitimate names, so Collison only rates a 'C.'

Today's photo looks like a 20 car collision, but it was actually a made-up event in Greenwich Village for the filming of the Will Smith movie "I am legend.' The original can be seen at

http://www.pbase.com/image/90448959

Peformance (for Performance)

"If man had created man he would be ashamed of his performance," according to the ever-quotable Mark Twain. Peformance for Performance breaks with the usual pattern found in most missing letter typos in that the omission is at the beginning of the word. Even so, when we first saw it we had to do a double take to find what constituted the error. That is not the case with "Peform" which is very easy to spot. There were only 3 Peforms in OHIOLINK this morning, but nearly 40 Peformances. That explains why the error is found on the B section of Typographical errors in Libary Databases at http://faculty.quinnipiac.edu/libraries/tballard/typoscomplete.html , which means that the

error was present in more than 15 records in OhioLINK at the time of its discovery. This morning, there were more than 1 million Peformances in Google. That sounded like a lot until we found out that the word was spelled correctly more than 750 million times.

Today's photo shows the wonderfully talented bluegrass band Cherryholmes performing in New York City in 2006. The original can be seen at
http://www.pbase.com/image/61482730

Pharoah* (for Pharaoh*)

Pharoah* is more than a mere typo. It's a very commonly misspelled word, turning up 329 times in OhioLINK. However, given that NACO shows seven personal names correctly spelled "Pharoah," some of those results are undoubtedly proper names. An author search on Pharoah* brings up 14 records, which may or may not contain misspellings. A keyword search on Pharoah* + Pharaoh* gets 32, which definitely do. Overall, quite a few typos here waiting to be excavated.

Former State Librarian Joseph Shubert and his beloved dog Nicky are posed together in a portrait that hangs in the Librarians Room of the New York State Library, along with a painting of Melvil Dewey. When the miniature schnauzer died last year, his longtime companion went to the pound where he was promptly picked by a new pooch, an "Egyptian" pharaoh hound. These are remarkable-looking creatures with large ears and languid airs; they resemble those skinny statues found in the antiquities rooms of many museums.

The FSL (who is also slender, red-haired, and classically inclined) named his new find Ginger, probably due to her coloring, but perhaps also because "Ginger" was the name given to the first known Egyptian mummy. It happens to be the name of the dog in the 1951 children's book Ginger Pye by Eleanor Estes as well. Coincidentally, Mr. Shubert and his furry friends spend their summers on Cape Cod, as did librarians Eleanor and Rice Estes. I've enjoyed quite a few vacations there myself with family pets. Here's to the dog days of summer and especially Ginger and Joe, who just celebrated his 80th birthday!

Carol Reid

Claire Booth Luce, etc. (for Clare Boothe Luce)

OhioLINK contains 13 cases of Clare Booth Luce, five of Claire Boothe Luce, two of Claire Booth Luce, and one of Clair Boothe Luce. Clare Boothe Luce is rather fun to say—kind of like John Wilkes Booth, but on a happier note. (Note the different spellings of Boothe and Booth). Ms. Luce clearly believed in the power of the voting booth; Mr. Booth apparently did not. In addition to being a congresswoman, ambassador, and social activist, Luce was the author of the Broadway play The Women, which was made into a marvelous movie in 1939 and is now sadly sullied, say some, by the remake currently in release. John Wilkes Booth hailed from a family of thespians and, as an actor in the mid-19th century, was very popular. In fact, he killed. I did not find any typos for his name, but it shall always be mud tracked on the stage of American history.

(Portrait of the lady by Carl Van Vechten, from Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid

Texbook* (for Textbook*)

Katherine Anne Porter was born in Texas in 1890 and was descended from Daniel Boone. She won both a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award for The Collected Stories in 1966 and was appointed to the American Academy of Arts and Letters that same year. Porter produced four short story collections as well as four other books, including Ship of Fools, which launched an award-winning Hollywood film in 1965. Her 76th year was certainly one for the books, giving all of us late bloomers, whether Texan or not, reason to think big. Texbook* (for textbook*) appears 16 times in OhioLINK, making it a typo of "high probability."

(Katherine Anne Porter on a postage stamp in 2006.)

Carol Reid

Spinal chord (for Spinal cord)

The strictest of music teachers tend to see a direct connection between the chords their students play and the straightness of their spinal cords. However, in this as in all things, moderation is key, according to William Hoyle's article "How the Words 'Sit up Straight' Have Damaged the Sound of Your Choir." The words cord and chord are homonyms, though somewhat related etymologically, which may account for the spelling confusion. The derivation of the former, according to Merriam Webster, is "Middle English, from Anglo-French corde, from Latin chorda string, from Greek chordē." The latter is an "alteration of Middle English cord, short for accord." Spinal chord turns up 11 times in OhioLINK and Spinal chords once. In hopes that this may be instructive to you as well, I remain cordially yours...

Carol Reid

(Painting of his mother and spinster sister sitting at a spinet, by Paul Cézanne, from Wikimedia Commons.)

Finacial, etc. (for Financial)

Three Uncles Sam—representing the U.S. Treachery, Federal Reverse, and Insecurities Exchange Commission, respectively—with a parade permit and a police escort lead the way in the liberation of YOUR MONEY ("FDIC Insured") as Ms. Information stands apoplectic at the hairy sight of explosive developments behind the scenes. You mone.

Finacial crashes OhioLINK 17 times and Fiancial eight times, making it a typo of "moderate" to "high probability" on the Ballard list.

(Text and photo "Prophet & Loss" by guest blogger apocryphal.)

Carol Reid