Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Funciton* (for Function*)

Form follows function, as they sometimes say, and in the case of today's typo (which I cleverly hit upon by making it myself), its form took me to ... Funkytown. One of my favorite disco numbers (a number of years back), it's currently functioning as the official song of the French nuclear power company, Areva. "Funkytown" was a big hit for Lipps, Inc., in 1980, but that was the only time the band hit the Top 40. Wikipedia refers to the tune as "one of disco's last stands." I'm not sure which of these two bits of "Funkytown" trivia surprised me more: that the Iranian delegation to the 2006 Winter Olympics chose to have it played during their entrance to the games, or that it was written about Minneapolis, Minnesota. Which is a pretty funky town, when you come to think of it, and home to one of the funkiest catalogers we know, Sandy Berman. And just in case you're wondering what the word "funky"even means, exactly, you might want to check out this definition at freedictionary.com, which includes the following word history: "When asked which words in the English language are the most difficult to define precisely, a lexicographer would surely mention funky..." Today's typo turned up ten times in OhioLINK today, which makes it a "moderate probability" one and one you may well find in your own database. If you're feeling a little sluggish, though, a trip to Funkytown should keep you "movin' with some energy..."

(Revolting Queers in Minneapolis Pride, by Andrew Ciscel, June 24, 2007, from Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid

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