RE: Non-trivial trivial names?

From:Jim at ProSciTech <jim@proscitech.com>

Kern-echt-rot. Its spelling is obvious if you know some German and its seems 
very unlikely that somebody had the name "Kernechtrot"
Kern=Nucleous or center; Echt=genuine, true or real; Rot=red.
Rot is never spelled Rott, not in German.
Richard is right, computer searches are unforgiving even with a word's ending. 
The trick is, When in doubt, shorten the word.
cheers
Jim Darley
ProSciTech                 Microscopy PLUS
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On Monday, February 12, 2001 3:53 PM, RichardWHorobin@aol.com 
[SMTP:RichardWHorobin@aol.com] wrote:
> Tony Henwood comments - with regard to the spelling of Kernechtrot - that:
>
> > I recall a catalogue with the dye spelt with two "t"s. And if I look deep
> > enough I could probably find a technique using the same spelling????
>
> Being at home I've just had a look at PubMed, and 'one T' has eight papers
> cited, whilst 'two Ts' has none - so maybe we're OK here!
>
> However in general, 'trivial' errors of this kind can be a problem
> (additional to the linguistic irritation, that is) . If you, Tony, HAD keyed
> in 'Kernechtrott' would you then have said "Oh, funny I'd had expected to
> find references, lets try one T?" Maybe, maybe not.
> And this problem is artifact of computer searches - if you looked in a book
> index, one T or two wouldnt confuse anyone.
>
> There are other 'non trivial trivial errors' - have you heard of the Hande
> stain for instance? Go on, say it out loud.
> That gets hits in the UK academic online bibliographic system WoSci, though
> not in PubMed (where it only finds a man named Hande, and no the 'Hande
> stain' wasnt invented by him/her).
>
> Bye - Richard Horobin
> Institute of Biomedical & Life Sciences, University of Glasgow
> T direct 01796-474 480 --- E  RichardWHorobin@aol.com
> "What should we expect? Everything."
>  << File: ATT00003.html >> 



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