Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Seige (for Siege)

We've all felt under siege at one time or another, I'm sure. And it's never as fun as building snow forts to defend from enemies on the playground.

Outside of a real war, we can be under siege from family members, work projects, or, in my case, tent caterpillars. Last summer, hundreds of the tiny monsters crawled all over my house, and I found myself very glad of two sets of locked, glass sliding doors protecting me. (Why locked? Because it's not that far out of the realm of reality that those little guys might learn to turn a door handle.)

George Romero put the siege concept to great use in his film Dawn of the Dead, with humans barricading themselves in a shopping mall against the hungry zombies lurking outside. The 1978 film was a commentary on consumerism and excess, but I'll admit it mainly makes me think, whenever I go to the mall, "Where is the best place to hide from zombies? Just in case..." It's always best to plan ahead.

The errors in our library catalogues can make us feel surrounded and helpless at times, but starting small can help: vanquish seige, a typo for siege, from yours now! Be careful to stick with "seige" and not "seige*", or you may nab a few author's names by mistake.

Leanne Olson

(Movie poster from Wikipedia.)

1 comment:

almost 6' x 2' x 9' said...

I find "seige" to be the spelling for multiple citations from Early English Books Online. Going to the source I see that siege must have been spelled differently in the olden days. So take that into consideration.