bamboo, bombo, etc

[Joel S. Berson]

At 3/5/2012 02:50 PM, Joan H. Hall wrote:
>Lexicography can be fun: see our discovery of "bombo" in "The Mythical
>Hedgehogs of North Carolina" in the DARE Newsletter from the Fall of
>2006: http://dare.wisc.edu/DARENEWS94.pdf

Ah yes -- the fallacy of relying on secondary sources.  I have just
been reading Richard D. Altick's "The Art of Literary Research" (4th
ed.), where he says "The same caution applies to facts derived from a
secondary source. No matter how reputable the book, it is always
advisable to go back to the place where its author or compiler got
the information: a typographical error, a careless transcription, or
an omission of important qualifications may make the account in some
respect inaccurate or misleading. And the bibliographic reference may
itself turn out to be wrong."

Joel

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