Doughnut Hole (or, when will William Safire retire?)

[Fred Shapiro]

yOn Sat, 24 Feb 2007, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:

> William Safire's Sunday New York Times "On Language" column discusses the
> doughnut hole:
> ...
> Fred Shapiro did a great job finding that March 18, 1886 "doughnut hole." I
> had posted it here on ADS-L on March 7, 2005. Thanks a lot!

My apologies to Barry.  This was my fault, not Safire's, since it is more
reasonable to expect me to check the ADS-L archives than to expect
Safire's new assistant to do so.  I often forget to check the archives,
especially in the deadline pressure of when Safire's assistant contacts
me, but for a food item I should certainly have thought of the possibility
that Barry may have posted on this.  In fact, it seems to be the first
thing he posted about after he got access to the Boston Globe on ProQuest.

I will e-mail Safire's assistant and e-mail a letter to the editor,
pointing out that Barry had discovered this in 2005.  Unfortunately, as
Barry well knows, it is rare that a correction of any kind to the "On
Language" column appears either in the column itself or in the letters to
the editor or in the corrections section.

Fred Shapiro


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