"Windy City" wrong in NY TIMES BOOK REVIEW(3-9-03)

[Laurence Horn]

At 6:45 PM -0500 3/10/03, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:
>    Could someone write on my behalf to the NEW YORK TIMES?  The NEW
>YORK SUN?  How many years must this go on?  My work was/is in the
>WALL STREET JOURNAL, the Straight Dope web site, World Wide Words
>web site, the Weather Doctor's web site, and the USA TODAY weather
>guy's web site.  And, especially, here on the American Dialect
>Society site.  MUST THIS HAPPEN EVERY DAY????

It does seem to happen every day, to Barry and in a sense to all of
us.  If Barry weren't so diligent about turning up these cites, it
would be less painful, I'm sure.  But there must have been almost as
many references to the umpteen words for snow in Eskimo before Geoff
Pullum published his book _The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax, and
other irreverent essays on the study of language_ (U. of Chicago
Press, 1991).  I'm not sure the appearance of the book has made a
sizable dent in the citation practice, but at least when it happens
now there's a place to refer culprits to for enlightenment.  (I just
did so to our Unitarian minister, and she seems pleased to have been
set straight on the subject.)  A book (perhaps with apposite
illustrations) including the "Windy City" and "hot dog" follies and
countless others, presented as a case of linguistic detective work,
might be just the thing.  At least when a solid demonstration is
offered in book form published by a major house, it's nothing to be
sneezed at.  And consider, as another parallel, the wonderful and
very well received recent compilation _Language Myths_, edited by
Laurie Bauer and Peter Trudgill (Penguin, 1998).  So how about a book
on false attributions--Barry?  Jerry?  anyone?

larry