Funny mistransliteration on spine

[George Fowler h(317)726-1482 o(812)855-2829]

Maybe we can start a nice thread on funny mistransliterations on the spines of
Russian books. Here's one (sort of). My all-time favorite write is Vladimir
Vojnovich, author of Zhizn' i neobychajnye prikljuchenija soldata Ivana
Chonkina. (I do wish he'd finish the thing. He confirmed to me when I met him
once that his zamysl is for Chonkin to perform some inadvertent act that will
decisively influence the outcome of World War II.) Anyway, around 1980 I
discovered that two books by V. had appeared in the USSR: a collection of early
stories and a novel entitled Stepen' doverija, in the series "Plamennye
revoljucionery" (!). Well, this last one really piqued my interest, you can
imagine, so I ordered both of them by interlibrary loan, photocopied them, and
decided to make them (relatively) permanent by having them bound. I sent them
off to the bindery that does U. of Chicago dissertations, with instructions to
put the following on the spine:

     POVESTI
     _______
     STEPEN'
     DOVERIJA

What came back was the following:

     POVESTI
     _______
     STEPAN
     d'OVERIJA

Note how the binders corrected my obviously misplaced apostrophe!!
     George Fowler
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George Fowler                       GFowler at Indiana.Edu [Email]
Dept. of Slavic Languages           1-812-855-2829 [office]
Ballantine 502                      1-317-726-1482 [home]
Indiana University                  1-812-855-2624/-2608/-9906 [dept.]
Bloomington, IN  47405  USA         1-812-855-2107 [dept. fax]
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