Degree of Difficulty With Spelling

A lawyer friend of Marty Girvan of Pasadena noticed that his new secretary--the one with the impressive college degree--was having a problem. He had just dictated a letter about a financial matter and she was thumbing furiously through a dictionary. She explained that she couldn’t find the word in his letter that followed “bank.” It sounded something like “ruptcy.”

THE ANIMALS WERE RESTLESS: In need of some vicarious thrills, I turned to the police log section of the Sierra Madre News. The foothill city didn’t disappoint me:

* June 26, 11:47 p.m.--”Reports seeing a large brown bear in yard. Officer investigates but the bear is gone upon his arrival.”

* June 30, 10:46 p.m.--”Report of a dog barking for over an hour. Officer investigates and finds three dogs barking in response to coyotes running loose in neighborhood.”

* July 7, 2 p.m.--”Report of a mountain lion walking northbound into the foothills from location.”

* July 7, 5:55 p.m.: “Reports seeing two mountain lion cubs on the northwest area of the grounds.”

* July 7, 6:33 p.m.: “Reports that his neighbor is throwing dog defecation at him again while he was in his backyard.”

That’s the trouble with police reports. You never know which ones are bull.

HAZY THINKING: Virtually all new cars pass the smog certification test. So there’s no use having them take it, right?

You must be kidding.

Beth Oliver and Louis Hirsch point out that the DMV registration form sent to owners of new cars contains this gem in small print:

“Smog certification is required. Please read the enclosed smog brochure. You may skip your Smog Check this year by paying an additional $39 and checking the box marked yes on the bottom of this notice.” (see accompanying)

What’s this all about?

A couple of years ago, state lawmakers enacted a law allowing owners to avoid the smog test and instead contribute to a fund to be used to purchase and scrap older “grosser polluting” cars that have failed the smog emissions test.

A great opportunity to be a do-gooder!

A MASS OF CONTRADICTIONS: Cecil Miller found a sign in San Pedro that seems to be having several internal arguments. (see photo)

DID HE OR DIDN’T HE? One of the oddest rumors in show biz concerns Lauren Bacall’s rendition of a song in the 1944 movie “To Have and Have Not.” Or non-rendition.

The Book of Lists--The ‘90s Edition says she had to be dubbed but “since she had such a deep-speaking voice, no female singer could be found who could match it convincingly. The solution lay in choosing a male singer . . . Andy Williams!”

But in the new book “Bogart and Bacall,” authors A.M. Sperber and Eric Lax write: “Some later accounts alleged that the actual singing was done by a very young Andy Williams. . . . But studio memos and production reports make it clear that she did her own singing.”

Williams, by the way, would have been around 14 at the time.

miscelLAny

“Tailhook ‘91,” proclaimed the top line of a license plate frame of a car seen on the San Gabriel River Freeway. It was, of course, a reference to the convention in Las Vegas that resulted in a sexual harassment scandal for the Navy. Oh, yes. The bottom line of the license plate frame added: “I Wasn’t There.”

Steve Harvey can be reached by phone at (213) 237-7083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com and by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, Times Mirror Square, L.A. 90053.