Searching With Style: Google Hacks

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• 1 - dan bloom

  Jun 18, 2005 at 3:15 am

  This website in the blogosphere is dedicated to unearthing the exact derivation and meaning of the new atomic term of ATOMIC TYPO, a fitting term in this Atomic Age in Atomic Time. But what does it mean?
  
  typos
  
  What's this? This page shows goodies from the web about typos. To contribute, just make a post to your blog about typos and include the link below. More Info »typos
  
  We are asking William Safire of the New York Times, but he has not replied yet. Busy man there. In his atomic times office! Write to him at onlanguage@nytimes.com
  
  Examples: unclear or nuclear, sudan or sedan, crist or christ.....in other words, a small, very small typograhic mistake, that ends up making a HUGE difference in the meaning!!!
  
  EXAMPLE: letter to editor: [Tom Morris of Jupiter flagged an atomic typo in the May 14 article, "Crist to run Martinez's Senate campaign," about Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist and U.S. Senate candidate Mel Martinez. Regarding the quote, " 'We share the same values, conservative values,' Christ said," Morris noted: "It's printed Christ, C-h-r-i-s-t, instead of Crist, C-r-i-s-t. I'm sure Christ doesn't back Sen. Martinez's campaign. I think it is a mistake and should be corrected."]
  
  
  
  ITEM 2
  
  C.F. Hanif, the editorial ombudsman at the Palm Beach Post of Florida USA, used this term in print one day when he wrote:
  
  Media helped to keep 'the secret'
  
  ... Ms. Reid e-mailed her letter ("Don't make women wait days for 'morning after' pills") about the status
  of the emergency contraceptive EC. An atomic typo during Spellcheck is my best guess for how EC became
  EX in each case, a mistake that still should have been caught.
  Palm Beach Post
  
  EMAIL here: hanif@pbpost.com.
  
  LINK HERE:
  
  www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/auto/epaper/editions/ thursday/opinion_f39efd4e204ed1c10081.html
  
  ITEM #3:
  
  Atomic Typo: A stenographer for the U.S. Congress generated headlinesin the Sudanese media this week by giving the mistaken impression theUnited States conducted nuclear tests in the African country in 1962and 1970. The Sudanese government asked the United States for anexplanation about a Web site report that a subcommittee of the U.S.House of Representatives Armed Services Committee had talked about thetests in Sudan. But Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail, who hadsummoned the U.S. charge d'affaires on hearing the news, said itturned out that the word Sudan was merely a typing error for Sedan, the name of a nuclear test site in Nevada.
  
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  LATER, we asked an intrepid word researcher named volchin :
  
  a newspaper reporter in Florida said a certain word was an atomic typo, when i looked it up, it means something like the world nuclear gets typed by human hand or by machine key as unclear, a small change in letters. This is what they call an atomic typo. Now what i want to know is why is it called atomic? i know typo. but atomic typo? do a google search and u will find some clues.
  
  
  
  So it appears that an atomic typo is a very small typo, one letter or two letters, done in a very tiny, atomic kind of way, like an atomic particle, as if one small difference makes the difference. This, I now believe, is the meaning of the term.
  
  
  
  To which volchin replied, after contacting CF HANIf (and this gets interesting now):
  
  As any good journalist knows, you have to go to the source, and in this case, the source was a journalist, a CF HANif at the Palm Beach Post in Florida! I wrote to the reporter and heard back like this: The phrase was meant as a joke, “atomic” referring to the ‘powerful’ impression the typo made. Here’s the response I got:
  
  "Please apologize to your atomic typo puzzled friend for me. That was just me having a little fun with a catchy phrase from a reader that has stayed with me since I first reported it in August 1995:
  
  On stationery that showed a beaver saying, ``It's just one dam project after another,'' R. T. of Palm Beach made my day. ``Wow! An atomic typo!'' he wrote, referring to the article that said ``There was blackslapping and handshaking all evening.''
  
  Being an American of African decent, you can imagine I had to smile at that one."
  
  Volchin added: Well, we don’t have a big deal here " yet " but it does show how language grows. Images form in the mind, take shape in the words we play with, and other people notice and pass them on.
  
  
  LATER, after a google search, we found that a Mr or Dr Peter J. Farago, Editor of CHEMISTRY IN BRITAIN, now called CHEMISTRY WORLD, wittily presented
  observations on "Editing: Good and Bad, Necessary or Not." He sees the
  purpose of an editor to be "grit in your oyster" and to avoid famous
  atomic typos such as "Unclear Physics." SEE NUCLEAR PHYSICS.
  
  So, friends and etymologists everywhere in blog heaven, what is an atomic typo, who coined this phrase and why?
  
  A free copy of William Safire's latest book to the one who nails it (signed and mailed by Mr S himself!)
  
  http://www.hyperdictionary.com/dictionary/atomic
  
  
  Write to me if you know.
  
  NOTE: This atomic blogger sponsored by Fiends of Atomic Typos Anonymous
  
  
  
  
  

• 2 - Bennett

  Jun 18, 2005 at 8:52 am

  Great post DrPat. I need to get this one to better understand my google ad campaign.
  
  Thanks!