Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Visting (for Visiting)

Wikipedia disambiguates the various meanings of calling card into five subsets, or what librarians sometimes call "see references": Business card; Calling card (crime); Tart card; Telephone card; and Visiting card. (Love the "tart card" ... "No, not tarot, but speaking of good news in your future, I'll be right over!") Visting shows up 19 times in OhioLINK, making it a "high probability" typo on the Ballard list. Visiting cards first made an appearance in China in the 15th century, and by the 1920s were taking up an entire chapter in Emily Post. (Visiting card of Princess Pauline de Metternich, designed by Edgar Degas circa 1865, from Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid

No comments: