Readers: Recently, in a letter to the editor, a writer referred to "Adolph Hitler." How does that happen? Adolf Hitler arguably is the villain of the 20th century (granted, it's a crowded field.). You’d think everyone knows how to spell his first name. At the very least, the newspaper's copy editor should have caught the goof.

Every day, folks make dumb mistakes about how to spell names of people, places and things. Or get them wrong altogether.

Some goofs leap out at you. Sometimes, as with foreign names (Khadafi, Qaddafi, Khadafy) or historical figures (Pharaoh Ramses, Pharaoh Rameses) there are differences of opinion about the official spelling. And we talked about foreign words and phrases in a March 2022 segment.

The “Horribly Wrong” team defers to either the Associated Press stylebook -- the bible for newspapers wanting to be both accurate and consistent -- or to any publication on AP’s list of authorized arbiters. (https://www.apstylebook.com/bibliography.)

Here are some classics:

WRONG CORRECT

Warren (tycoon) or Jimmy (singer) Buffet Buffett

Columbia (country) Colombia

District of Colombia Columbia

Colombus, Ohio Columbus

Pittsburg, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh, Kansas Pittsburg

Binghampton, New York Binghamton

The person spoke Iranian The person spoke Farsi

Philippine (resident) (not Phillipine) Filipino

Bombay, India Mumbai

Michael Angelo (painter) Michelangelo

Pope Frances Francis

Niagra Falls Niagara

NFL’s Chiefs play in Kansas City, Kansas Missouri

Camero (car) Camaro

Nicholas Gage (actor) Nicolas Cage

Barbara Streisand (singer/actor/director) Barbra Streisand

Dan Ackroyd (comedian/actor) Dan Aykroyd

Fort Meyers, Florida Fort Myers

Mike Meyers (comedian/actor) Mike Myers

Seth Myers (comedian/talk host) Seth Meyers

Doc Duvalier (Haitian strongman) François "Papa Doc" Duvalier or Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier

Forest Gump (movie title and character) Forrest Gump

Jane Austin (novelist) Jane Austen

Frankfurt (Kentucky capital) Frankfort (Not Louisville!)

Frankfort (German city) Frankfurt

Amtrack (rail system) Amtrak

George Bush, Jr. (former U.S. president) George W. Bush

Barak Obama (former U.S. president) Barack

Watch this on video! https://youtu.be/9TFzjLuTqHQ

Next time: Pretzel logic

Readers: "Something Went Horribly Wrong," features samples of bad writing we see nearly every day. You can participate! Be our duly deputized “grammar police:” Your motto: “To protect and correct.” Send in your photos of store signs, street signs, newspaper headlines, tweets, and so on. It doesn’t have to be a grammatical error. It can be just what we call “cowardly writing.” Include your name and home town so we properly can credit you. You're free to add a comment, although we reserve the right to edit or omit. Now get out there! Send to Eliot@eliotkleinberg.com

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