From: "Erica VD Ginter" <eginter at klgai.com>
To: "'WSFA members'" <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: quotations down through the ages
Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 11:15:16 -0400
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

I'd rather have the house! But you don't have to pay property tax on the
book--except maybe in Virginia, where a car is taxed!

Erica
who stayed mute on "Hemmingway" because she picks too many nits as it is

-----Original Message-----
From: Keith F. Lynch [mailto:kfl at keithlynch.net]
Sent: Tuesday, June 18, 2002 1:22 AM
To: WSFAlist at keithlynch.net
Subject: [WSFA] Re: quotations down through the ages

ronkean at juno.com wrote:
> Aha.  I just ran my spell-checker on 'Hemmingway' and it suggested
> 'Hemingway'.

Yes.  I doubt there's anyone on this list who hasn't heard of him.

At the Washington Antiquarian Book Fair last March, I could have
gotten a wonderful enormous full-color 16th century world map for
about what a new car would cost.  I could have purchaced books from
the 15th century for even less.  But if I had the price of a *house*
I could instead have purchaced a first printing of the first edition
of Hemingway's first book.

> I did notice that 'Tolstoi' was misspelled when I got a copy of the
> quotations from the 'Paranoids of Pennsylvania' email list, and I
> corrected that.  Perhaps those quotations are a hoax.

There's usually no unique correct transliteration of a name or word
that's normally written in another alphabet.  Tolstoi (51) and Tolstoy
(166) are both correct.  On glancing at my CDs, I see that a certain
composer is spelled Tschaikowsky (44) one some, and Tchaikovsky (297)
on others.  A notorious terrorist is variously spelled bin Laden
(1470), bin Ladin (57), ibn Ladin (1), or ibn Laden (1).  His first
name is Osama (907) or Usama (76).  The capital of China is Beijing
(2370), Peking (333), or Peiping (3).

Numbers in parentheses are thousands of Google hits on a search term,
which shows how popular a given spelling is.  A fun google game is
to find variant spellings which are as close to evenly matched as
possible.  For instance zeros (543), zeroes (157).  Or better yet
traveling (3130), travelling (2180).
--
Keith F. Lynch - kfl at keithlynch.net - http://keithlynch.net/
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