Correction of the Week: Funny, yes. But timely?

The March 4 issue of the New Yorker includes a “Correction of the Week” from a familiar source -- the Los Angeles Times. It’s a funny one, as corrections go, especially to those of us who like words:

Beauty column: In a Sunday Image article about hyaluronic acid, a skin-care ingredient and injectable filler, Dr. Nowell Solish was quoted as saying that if people change their minds after receiving an injection, there is an anecdote. It should have quoted him as saying there is an antidote.

Yes, we think patients would rather have an antidote (anything that works against an unwanted condition) than an anecdote (a short, entertaining account of some happening).

We don’t find errors funny, in general, and undoubtedly the reporter and editors wish they’d caught this before it appeared in print. But we admit to laughing sometimes over a misused word such as this, and we can see why editors at the New Yorker did too.

However, what’s odd is that this story and correction were published almost three years ago, in June 2010.

Times Assistant Managing Editor Henry Fuhrmann, who pointed out the curiousness of the date, said, “The magazine’s fact-checkers are legendarily methodical, but still...”

Maybe in a year or two we can look forward to seeing some others from our personal Hall of Shame, such as the “blue-color” immigrants in the city of Bell.

readers.representative@latimes.com

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