To Err Is Human, and Widespread

Having admitted writing that the sun “shown” down on Ojai Valley, maybe I can be forgiven for listing a few more bloopers committed by my colleagues in various publications.

The Times itself has been prolific recently in producing such solecisms. We have seen pouring for poring , tow for toe , taught for taut , tired for tiered , you’re for your , personnel for personal , allusions for illusions , donned for dawned , and so on.

But we are not alone. The breakdown of spelling and grammar seems to be pervasive in our society.

Kate Langrall Folb sends me a form notice from her bank with this note typed in, and signed, at the bottom: “Our legal department advises that we need the signature of your husban, consenting the adding or your son as a beneficiary. Please reed parragraph highligted in red.”

Mrs. Folb points out that a so-called “professional” woman had made six errors of omission or spelling in two short sentences.

Wilfred H. Shaw of Hermosa Beach points out that the Daily Breeze is not immune. He sends a caption noting that “Debbie Harvey practices her French horn away from the maddening crowd,” evidently from Thomas Gray’s “madding crowd’s ignoble strife.”

That is a harmless mistake (if it is one); the dictionary characterizes madding as archaic, and gives maddening as one of its definitions. Why should we be bound to Gray’s poetic usage?

Shaw also sends a political review from the Daily Breeze in which the Israeli diversion of 240 kilos of enriched uranium from the United States is called a fete . Some party.

Shaw also faults The Times for using the word alibi in the colloquial sense of excuse , the use of usage for use , and for the use of the plural were with none , as in none were .

Alibi is in common use (except by true purists), the difference between use and usage is fine indeed, and none were is correct, none meaning either not one or not any .

But Shaw graciously concedes: “It was agreeably striking to note the relatively few errors found in a month of random scanning. Your profession doesn’t get an A perhaps, but a high B.”

Ellen M. Fuller also nails The Times for “I took a lot of flack on the road.” We deserve some flak for that.

Pat Carlson points out a seemingly graver error in a Times book review. “In July, 1917, reflecting on what epithet to put on Peter’s gravestone . . . “ But I suspect many relatives have contemplated putting epithets on their loved one’s tombstones, and some have done so. (“Here lies Deadeye Dick.”)

Leonard Feather has sent me a page torn from one of those desk-top calendars that spells and defines a new word each day. The word for Thursday, a date in February, was spelled indefatigible . I’d say that is inexcusible.

A man who chooses to remain anonymous says he heard the following on a Channel 13 news broadcast: “ . . . sentenced to die in the gas chamber for a second time today.”

He says, “Now that’s what I call cruel and unusual punishment.” No, just a little problem in syntax.

An even more remarkable piece of syntactical imagery, also from The Times, is sent by Jonathan Schwartz and Claire Clements: “Mel Fisher, who was at the auction wearing pounds of gold chain that he had found on the ocean floor around his neck.” That reminds me of my triumph: “A man chasing a cat with a broom in his underwear.”

Jay Berman of Cal State Fullerton sends a clipping from the New York Times to show that even that distinguished newspaper is not infallible: “Avoid cycling in high gears, which causes undue knee stress when you are peddling up even a slight incline. . . .”

Berman asks: “What do you suppose these people are peddling as they pedal their bicycles up those inclines?”

Final proof that no publication is above this sort of slip is a page sent me by Dr. A. M. Burner of Chatsworth from the usually impeccable New Yorker. This line is in it: “ . . . the assembled press corps had to make due with a brief prepared statement. . . .”

Is nothing sacred?