Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Homonym accident

From a Rural King circular.


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No job too small

comments: 7

The O'Sheas said...

Homonyn?

Michael Leddy said...

How fitting that in posting about vowels I should mess up consonants! Now corrected. Thanks, Greg and Kris.

The O'Sheas said...

I usually quote William Stafford at this point. His epigraph for a collection of Emily Dickinson's poetry said something like, "When a thought takes one's breath away, a lesson in grammar seems an impertinence.

Forgive our impertinence. ;)

Anonymous said...

Sorry to chime in so predictably with another Orwell anecdote, but I'm reading Bernard Crick's biography and have got to the parts involving Orwell's brief time in the 30s as a teacher at a so-called "practical school." Years later, his students remember that their instructor "once offered sixpence from his own pocket as a prize for anyone who could stop a ludicrous misspelling in the local laundry window." Someone, I think, owes you a great deal of money, Michael.

Michael Leddy said...

Stefan, you've got me wondering what that misspelling could have been. "Laundery"?

Anonymous said...

This problem of committing errors while commenting on them appears contagious: the operative word in the quote was supposed to be "spot" not "stop." Ugh! Typos and misspellings were evidently an on-going problem at the local laundry, and evidently, you and I can relate. Perhaps we should send one another sixpence (adjusted for inflation, of course).

Michael Leddy said...

I wouldn't have caught your typo, Stefan — I thought "stop" made perfect sense, with a student explaining the problem to the launderers and getting them to fix it.

I think there's also something about comments in general that inspires typos. I make them often.