Hurican* (for Hurrican*)

I can no longer foolishly regard the unprecedented hurricane we experienced recently as just a thrillingly and exceedingly windy and rainy day, with the occasional flooded cellar, roof damage, and annoyance of no Internet connection or temporary loss of power to deal with—but see it instead as an unbelievably cold and cruel act of nature. The wife of a former coworker was killed in the normally placid creek behind their home as she and her husband prepared to evacuate, after warning all their neighbors to do the same. A loving eleven-year-old boy in Virginia was killed as he slept in bed next to his mother when a tree crashed down upon their house. At least 44 people were killed in this horrific storm, which like a Nazi storm trooper simply annihilated everything and everyone in its path. A family member in Vermont described her town's nearest river as a "raging roiling monster." And, while it doesn't compare to the tragic loss of life that's occurred, I felt utterly disheartened when I heard about the destruction of the historic Old Blenheim Bridge in nearby Schoharie County. (Wikipedia is already referring to it in the past tense.) Old Blenheim Bridge in North Blenheim, New York, was the longest covered bridge of its type in the world. The sign at its entrance had read: "$500 fine to ride or drive this bridge faster than a walk." I wish we could consign that goddam gale to eternal Hell for tearing down our beloved bridge faster than you could walk over it, and for the pain and suffering it has caused up and down the eastern seaboard. My thoughts and prayers are with all victims everywhere of what I can no longer bring myself to call "Mother Nature." (Five cases of Hurican* in OhioLINK and 89 in WorldCat.)

(Old Blenheim Bridge, photographed March 11, 2008, from up the hill on the eastern shore of the Schoharie Creek, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid

Consultin, Consulan*, (for Consulting, Consultan*)

"I could while away the hours, conferrin' with the flowers, consultin' with the rain..." sang the Scarecrow in the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz, considering all the options that would be open to him, if he "only had a brain." No matter how brainy a consultant might be, nobody really knew this past week just where and how hard the hurricane would hit us. On the heels of an earthquake a few days ago that rocked Virginia and many other points up and down the eastern seaboard, how you were affected was basically a crapshoot. Some people in my building felt the earth move under their feet and witnessed the unnerving sight of furniture, shelving, books, etc. bouncing about, and like a wobbly Ray Bolger, weren't quite sure which way to go at first; others didn't notice a thing. Same with the storm. A few of our coworkers are still at home dealing with flooded basements, a lack of electricity, and other distressing developments, while others remained high and dry. If only there were someone possessing the power of a wizard with whom we could consult on matters like this. After consulting with OhioLINK and WorldCat, we found two examples of Consultin and 22 of Consulan* in OhioLINK (along with 20 and 212 in WorldCat).

(An illustration by W. W. Denslow from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, published in 1900, from Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid

Aproach* (for Approach*)

While watching the coverage of Hurricane Irene this morning, I thought I heard one of the newscasters say: "As the storm appoarches..." I was eager to find evidence of this audio 'typo' in OhioLINK too, but sadly enough, no dice. In any event, as the storm approaches, it might be time to come in off the porch. And bring in all your garden tools, barbeque skewers, and various other summer accoutrements while you're at it. Any potential projectiles, as it were. Batten down the hatches. So far, no major tree limbs have managed to flatten the car and my bushes are all bowing gracefully, if rather frantically, in the wind. This one, though, is surely off the Beaufort charts. There have been close to 70,000 reported power outages in the area and surely a lot of things blowing around that really shouldn't be, but most of us weathered the storm okay. Hope you're all doing well wherever you are. Keep your powder dry and keep a positive approach. There were 33 cases of Aproach* in OhioLINK (maybe one of those P's got carried away!) and 882 in WorldCat.

(Hurricane Irene as seen from GOES 13 East Satellite, Aug 27, 2011, at 19:24 EST, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid

Partipants (for Participants)

If you think women's fashion trends are a hot button today, you should have been around a hundred years ago or so, when a girl couldn't even wear slacks without causing a sensation. In this picture captioned "Good Heavens! The Shirt!" from Vanity Fair's Bifurcated Girls Special Issue—"bifurcated" in this case meaning that women (stop the presses!) actually have legs—this daring young lady appears to be straddling the fence with bloomers bunched up under her trousers. (The editors are focused on something else, however: "She had been dressing in her brother's clothes and had gotten as far as the vest, when she suddenly realized that she had forgotten to put on the shirt. Oh dear, how silly she felt! She wouldn't have had her brother know the mistake she made for the world." Although, once she had gotten into his pants, who really cares about the shirt?!) Feminist Amelia Bloomer did not actually invent the pouffy pantaloons, but was a prominent advocate of this advance over the constricting corsets of previous generations. In fact, "bloomers" (like "suffragette," a derisive term contrived by the press) were invented by Elizabeth Smith Miller of Peterboro, New York. In 1909, Paris designer Paul Poiret attempted a revival of the bloomer costume with a combination of "harem pants" and a long tunic, but he was apparently a bit ahead of his time as well. According to Wikipedia, when he "presented the Russian Princess Bariatinsky with a Confucius coat with an innovative kimono-like cut, for instance, she exclaimed, 'What a horror! When there are low fellows who run after our sledges and annoy us, we have their heads cut off, and we put them in sacks just like that.'" Pants have been worn by women for over a century now, both for work (pantsuits) and play (party pants!) and women's fashion is now a participatory sport. The typo Partipants was found five times in OhioLINK and 57 times in WorldCat.

(From Vanity Fair, June 6, 1903, and Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid

Hisstor* (for History, etc.)

On today's date in 1948, the House Un-American Activities Committee held the first congressional hearing ever aired on television. Known as "Confrontation Day," it consisted of contradictory testimony by former Communists and Soviet spies Alger Hiss and Whittaker Chambers. The former had been a lawyer, author, and government official involved in the establishment of the United Nations. Hiss was not actually charged with espionage as the the statute of limitations had run out; however, he was charged and convicted on two counts of perjury. (Chambers was a cooperating government witness, so no charges were brought against him.) Although the hearing was held on a day of "infernal heat," twelve hundred spectators were admitted and scores of others gathered outside. Only one in ten Americans had ever watched a television program, but millions tuned in to this dramatic and divisive hearing. Whether or not Hiss was truly a spy is debated to this very day. His story may not be uncovered for a couple of decades, though, since HUAC's records were sealed in 1976 for another fifty years. The typo Hisstor* was discovered ten times in OhioLINK (including one possible antiquated spelling from 1744 and one publisher name: HisStory) and 66 times in WorldCat.

(Alger Hiss, American statesman accused of espionage, from the Library of Congress's New York World-Telegram & Sun Collection, and Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid

Hoffmann + Hoffman (for Hoffman or Hoffmann)

On August 24, 1967, Abbie Hoffman and his merry band of "Yippies," less flippantly known as the Youth International Party, threw a pretty excellent one when they started throwing both real and fake dollar bills down from the viewing gallery of the New York Stock Exchange, causing trading to temporarily grind to a halt as brokers scrambled all over themselves trying to pick them up. C'mon now, that's still funny, and would probably go down exactly the same way, and be just as funny (or sad) today. Hoffman said they had no intention of alerting the press ("media events" hadn't been invented yet), but the story was nevertheless reported all over the world. Funny but frugal, the Yippies supposedly spent between $30 and $300 on this valuable stunt. On the other hand, the stock exchange subsequently laid out twenty grand to enclose the gallery in bulletproof glass. Don't get greedy now, but today's typo is worth 450 hits in OhioLINK, and 22 in WorldCat—in 1967 alone (with "too many records found for your search" otherwise).

(Abbie Hoffman visiting the University of Oklahoma to protest the Vietnam War, circa 1969, from Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid

Amusment* (for Amusement*)

Hah! I hate what I've come to refer to as "mirthless laughter." Especially when it's paired with feigned incredulity. You know, the way some people will mask their hostility with a fake little puff of air (or in more versatile mouths, a series of tiny exhalations), often accompanied by an eye roll, an insincere smile, a weary head shake, or an unconvincing "That's hilarious." And I also hate the way there seems to be no real word for it. Snorting is the best I can come up with, and that doesn't quite capture the phony amusement part. Maybe a French phrase is what's called for in this case. Something like rire sans joie. You'll often hear it in a court of law, when a witness is presented with some evidence or an accusation they clearly wish to deny. It's sort of like when people use the words honey or sweetheart as a putdown. It's like taking something that is only in the world to do good, and then poisoning or corrupting it. Or at the very least, kind of mussing it up. I'm not trying to be funny here, but we found three examples of Amusment* in OhioLINK today, and 72 in WorldCat.

(Announcement in a cafe in Oirschot, the Netherlands, September 2008, from Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid