Thursday, July 30, 2009

Bookeep* (for Bookkeep*)

Q: What do you call someone who has $50 in overdue library fines?
A: A bookkeeper.

Sorry, I couldn’t help it—that terrible joke still makes me chuckle a little. Less funny is bookeeper, a typo for bookkeeper. Bookkeeper is the only word I can think of with 3 pairs of letters in a row, so why rob the word of this little bit of cachet by leaving out a letter?

Subbookkeeper, which some dictionaries define as a bookkeeper’s assistant who has his own responsibilities, is even better…4 pairs of letters in a row!

These words with double letters are easier to misspell (look, there’s another one—mispell is a rather amusing typo), but surely if a bookkeeper can remember to carry her ones, we cataloguers can watch our typing.

Leanne Olson

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