Wednesday, October 10, 2007

October 10, 2007 - Massacusetts

Massacusetts for Massachusetts represents one of the most common categories of typos - a dropped letter in the second half of a multisyllabic word. This one is found on the C or moderate page of Typographical Errors in Library Databases at http://faculty.quinnipiac.edu/libraries/tballard/Sectionc.html. Here is a sampling of the error rate in a variety of places:

OhioLINK - 8
WorldCat - 143
Google - 80,000
ProQuest - 77
JSTOR - 48

Place names are a staple on our typo lists, and this is one of the most misspelled states by far. Chatham, Mass., where the following picture was taken, is on the other end of the spectrum.

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