Figgy

@Dan Sorry to make an example of your final complaint, but many gripes here could be averted with a quick check of the dictionary — or of Wikipedia, which has this to say about the etymology of Yreka: “Mark Twain tells a different story: [Twain's mentor Bret] Harte had arrived in California in the [eighteen-]fifties, twenty-three or twenty-four years old, and had wandered up into the surface diggings of the camp at Yreka, a place which had acquired its mysterious name – when in its first days it much needed a name – through an accident. There was a bakeshop with a canvas sign which had not yet been put up but had been painted and stretched to dry in such a way that the word BAKERY, all but the B, showed through and was reversed. A stranger read it wrong end first, YREKA, and supposed that that was the name of the camp. The campers were satisfied with it and adopted it.”

Is it just me, or are others disappointed by how rarely a confidently incorrect complainer returns to the comments with a mea culpa? I would feel just a tiny bit more hopeful about the state of society if Chris would pop back in to say, “D’oh — you’re totally right! My bad!” It feels like failure to carefully consider facts and acknowledge error is what has brought us to this unfortunate national schism…

@Steve L: Sorry, I guess yesterday's sloppiness spread from the Midi to me. I mistakenly thought that the Midi had its own comment section. Good thing this wasn't the GRE. Or am I thinking of the GMAT?