Thursday, December 18, 2008

Rediculous (for Ridiculous)

Which is more ridiculous, a red chapeau or a blue beehive? Marge Simpson's got both, but keep that under your hat. OhioLINK's got seven cases of Rediculous, making this a "low probability" typo on the Ballard list. That E (before I) may be due to a tendency on the part of some people to pronounce this word "Ree-diculous." The Red Hat Society was founded in 1998 by Sue Ellen Cooper, who gave her friend a red hat from a thrift store on her 55th birthday, along with a poem that begins: "When I am an old woman I shall wear purple, with a red hat that doesn't go and doesn't suit me."

(Marge Simpson in "The Last of the Red Hat Mamas," a play on the Sophie Tucker sobriquet The Last of the Red Hot Mamas, from Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid

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