Fuchs Law

Journalese of the Day:  Fuchs Law

As listed in Paul Dickson’s “Official Rules,”  Fuchs Law states that if a name can be misspelled it will be. Illustrating this is a correction in the Boston Globe, Oct 15, 2016: “Correction: Because of a reporting error, a story about the construction industry in Boston in the Sunday Business section, which was printed in advance, misspelled the first name of Suffolk Construction CEO John Fish. The Globe regrets the error.” A curious reader might wonder how John could be misspelled? Well, Fuchs Law in action: it was spelled Jon. In the old days, a copy editor, or a linotype operator,  would have caught that one, since John Fish is well known, and would get thousands of hits in a Globe search. If the Globe has any copy editors left, I guess they were at lunch or in the john when that story went through.