New York Times Corrections

Bapopik at AOL.COM Bapopik at AOL.COM
Sun Sep 16 16:15:05 UTC 2001


   I stand corrected!
   I had searched under "Barry Popik" (my name; I had found the citation in the course of my work) and DATAMATION (the name of the 1959 periodical where I found "personal computer").  Neither term is in the New York Times Correction:

   An article on Aug. 19 about the origins of the personal computer referred incorrectly to the first use of the term "personal computer" in advertising.  A 1968 ad for a Hewlett Oackard desktop calculator was not the first occurrence.  The term was used at least as far back as 1959 in an advertisement for the PACE TR-10 transistorized computer made by Electronic Associates, Inc.

   Amazing!  The New York Times actually made a correction!
   Now how about correcting Charles Gillett's 1995 obituary, which said that Damon Runyon popularized "the Big Apple"?
   Damon Runyon had never used the term.  I had sent my papers to the American Dialect Society member on the newspaper in 1992, and then also to nearly every single editor.
   How about making the corrections in William Safire's Sept. 2000 column that involves my name and work--my professional reputation?
   How come there's a quotation about George Thompson's sex life ("Fit to Print") and there's no quotation from the African-American stablehands who gave New York City its nickname?



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