Mind That Bird

[copygoldleader]

In the Houston Chronicle today, Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird was misspelled Mind That Bird when listing the Preakness field and their odds despite being next to an article that had Mine That Bird in the subhead.

I was curious to see how many “Mind That Bird” typos there were so I searched the exact phrase in Google and came back with 63,500 results.

Some of the highlights:

Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/02/AR2009050202294.html

The Star-Ledger
http://www.nj.com/sports/ledger/izenbergcol/index.ssf/2009/05/rachel_alexandra_is_filly_wort.html

Idaho Statesman
http://www.idahostatesman.com/NationalSports/story/769621.html

The Idaho Statesman hasn’t run the photo correction as evidenced by The Boston Globe.
http://www.boston.com/sports/other_sports/horse_racing/articles/2009/05/13/rachel_alexandra_adds_girl_power_to_preakness/

Of course given the state of the industry, none of this is surprising as editing goes by the wayside and we all know the daily struggle with terribly written photo captions.

 

[Dave Kindred]

Strange thing about Google, if you misspell a name, it brings up stories spelling the name the way you did it....for instance, try "Lary Bird".....or "Min That Bird"

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

This is a common mistake that is not caused by the industry's current woes. You'll find simple mistakes like this throughout the history of newspapers. Care to guess how many times Bill Bidwill's name has been misspelled?

 

[Cosmo]

This is a common mistake that is not caused by the industry's current woes. You'll find simple mistakes like this throughout the history of newspapers. Care to guess how many times Bill Bidwill's name has been misspelled?

Made that very mistake when covering my first Cardinals training camp ...

 

[write then drink]

This is a common mistake that is not caused by the industry's current woes.

couldn't disagree more

there've always been typos and spelling errors

the fewer deskers you have, the fewer errors get caught

do you actually believe layoffs and cutbacks haven't hurt the quality of editing and copyediting and proofreading?

 

[Ben_Hecht]

It's a question of degree, and the issues have clearly multipled, exponentially. SI is as good an example as you will find.

 

[Captain_Kirk]

Hopefully, these stories weren't doing lame comparisons to Seebiscuit.

 

[playthrough]

... Then the heavens opened, the rain pouring down, the lightning flashing, and they rushed for cover of the stables, leaving alone on his side near a pile of bricks, the rain running off his hide, dead an hour and a quarter after his first start, Air Lit, son of Bold Ventura, full brother of Assualt.

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

This is a common mistake that is not caused by the industry's current woes.

couldn't disagree more

there've always been typos and spelling errors

the fewer deskers you have, the fewer errors get caught

do you actually believe layoffs and cutbacks haven't hurt the quality of editing and copyediting and proofreading?

I believe calling the horse Mind That Bird is the kind of error that has happened since the first newspaper was printed off.

 

[fishwrapper]

The gelding is ****in' pissed, too.
First, pissed about being a gelding. (This would generally **** anyone off).
Secondly...Well, I can't get past the first one.

 

[Moderator1]

No respect.
Loses his rider to a FILLY, wins the Derby and isn't the favorite in the Preakness, has no NADS and now this?
That horse is probably ****-faced by now, telling everybody "mind THIS, mu-fugga."

 

[Ace]

I don't really mine the error.

 

[Moderator1]

@bettors: F U, luv MTB

 

[BTExpress]

do you actually believe layoffs and cutbacks haven't hurt the quality of editing and copyediting and proofreading?

Sad to say, it probably hasn't.

Yes, we have fewer eyes to catch things. But we also have fewer pages, fewer stories.

So it's not like a copy editor who was editing 10 stories before is doing 20 now. He's still editing 10 . . . it's just that those 10 are half the stories in the paper instead of 25%-35%.

 

[mediaguy]

I'm amazed how often I see "Alex Rodriquez" in copy ...

 

[TigerVols]

Hell even the legendary voice calling the Derby itself couldn't get the name right...and barely mentioned MTB at all!

http://backporch.fanhouse.com/2009/05/05/mine-that-bird-shocked-everyone-including-announcer-tom-durkin/

 

[UPChip]

It has to be right, because I haven't seen it any other way, but Pioneerof the Nile was seriously messing me up during Derby week.

 

[Guybehindtheguy]

It has to be right, because I haven't seen it any other way, but Pioneerof the Nile was seriously messing me up during Derby week.

The reason there is no space between pioneer and of is due to a rule that says horse names can't be longer than 18 characters (including spaces) so that the name will fit on the racing form

 

[UPChip]

The Times put in the extra space in their Preakness recap. I'm not debating you. I'm just noting that it looks like someone at their desk noticed the missing space too.

 

[SF_Express]

It has to be right, because I haven't seen it any other way, but Pioneerof the Nile was seriously messing me up during Derby week.

The reason there is no space between pioneer and of is due to a rule that says horse names can't be longer than 18 characters (including spaces) so that the name will fit on the racing form

Absolutely correct, sir. And UPChip, if the Times put that space in there, then the Times copy editors did something they absolutely shouldn't have, and considering he has been around as a high-profile Triple Crown prospect for a number of months now, I'm really surprised.