Friday, August 7, 2009

Worls (for World)

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man," according to the endlessly quotable George Bernard Shaw. Worls is on the D, or Low Probability, section of Typographical Errors in Library Databases, but it presents a special problem when you try to correct the records where it is found. "World" is the obvious correct form, given that the D and S key are neighbors on the QUERTY keyboard. However, the K and L keys are just as close, so the cataloger might have been shooting for "Works." If it is a missing letter typo, the correct word might be "Worlds." Looking at the 240 entries for Worls in WorldCat, our blog entry might come as some surprise to an author named G. Randolph Worls. We can't say this enough - check for context before you change a record.

Today's photo features Don Larsen, a Yankee great who is the only man who ever pitched a perfect game in the World Series. He graciously put up with getting his picture taken with me and my son. Happy Birthday, Don. The original can be found at http://www.pbase.com/terryballard/image/85667038/

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