The Lincoln Memorial Typo

The Lincoln Memorial is one of the most iconic landmarks in the United States. Before its official dedication took place in 1922, an unfortunate typo was discovered etched into the words of Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, one of two famous speeches inscribed on the monument, along with the Gettysburg Address. During the original carving of the inscriptions, an engraver mistakenly carved an “E” in place of the “F” in the word “FUTURE” in the phrase “WITH HIGH HOPE FOR THE FUTURE.” Eventually, the error was corrected by filling in the bottom line of the “E,” but the flub is still visible to those looking for it. 

The Dictionary’s Fake Word

A dictionary is a presumed source of accuracy, but in 1934, the nonword “dord” appeared in the second edition of Webster’s New International Dictionary. It appeared between the text’s entries for “dorcopsis,” a small kangaroo species, and “doré,” meaning “golden in color.” “Dord” was listed as a noun referring to density in the fields of physics and chemistry. The intended entry was actually “D or d,” the abbreviation for density used by physicists and chemists, but the error went unnoticed before going to print. The mistake wasn’t caught until 1939, when an editor at Merriam-Webster discovered it and hastily marked up the page announcing the “imperative” and “urgent” need to correct a “ghost word” — the term given to a word that doesn’t actually exist.

Google’s Lucky Typo

In 1996, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the co-founders of Google, named their new search engine “BackRub.” As their project grew, the tech duo began looking for a new name, and fellow Stanford student Sean Anderson reportedly suggested the name “googolplex,” the name of an incredibly large number (1 followed by a “googol” of zeroes). Page suggested the shorter “googol,” which is the mathematical expression for the number 1 followed by 100 zeros. Anderson typed the domain name to check its availability, but reportedly accidentally searched for “google.com.” The name stuck, and on September 15, 1997, Page and Brin registered the domain, a word that, while a happy accident, nonetheless succinctly reflected their mission to organize the world’s information.

Beauty and the Beast

Another fairy tale with possible Bronze Age origins, this story of a woman falling in love with a monster harboring a secret has echoes in the myth of Cupid and Psyche, detailed in the second-century novel Metamorphoses. The first known version of “Beauty and the Beast,” published in 1740 by France’s Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, was a longer-winded story about a girl sent to live with a ghastly creature as punishment for her father stealing a rose. 

Another French novelist, Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, produced a more succinct update in 1756, which became the definitive version following its first English printing the following year. It’s sometimes said that “Beauty and the Beast” was based on the true story of Petrus Gonsalvus, a 16th-century Canary Islands native who became a celebrity in France due to a condition that left his body covered in hair, although there is no conclusive evidence that he was the inspiration.

Cinderella

The story of a royal seeking out the owner of a lone piece of footwear can be found in the ancient Egyptian tale of “Rhodopis,” recorded around the first century BCE/CE by the Roman geographer Strabo, and the story later surfaced in the ninth-century Chinese story of “Yeh-Shen.” However, it was the 17th-century Italian folklore collector Giambattista Basile who helped shape the modern version of the tale with its wicked stepsisters and a gussied-up protagonist dazzling at the palace ball in “Cenerentola.” 

French author Charles Perrault further refined the plot points in his 1697 rendition, included in his collection Histoires ou contes du temps passé, which featured the renamed Cinderella, as well as the fairy godmother, pumpkin carriage, and infamous glass slippers. Although the Brothers Grimm also published the story, their versions included mutilations inflicted on the stepsisters that understandably failed to make it into later retellings for children.

Rapunzel

The tale of “Rapunzel” is sometimes compared to that of St. Barbara, a third-century woman who was locked in a tower to prevent her from being influenced by the spread of Christianity. A stronger connection can be found in the 10th-century Persian epic poem “Shahnameh,” in which a princess lowers her hair from a palace roof to a pursuing prince. 

However, it was once again Basile who gave us the contours of the modern story with “Petrosinella,” in which the titular long-haired princess is shuttered in a tower by an evil ogress. One German translation of the tale changed the heroine’s name to Rapunzel, which was then popularized by Brothers Grimm interpretations in the 19th century.

Little Red Riding Hood

Who’s afraid of the big, bad wolf? A lot of people, apparently, as the story of the trickster predator has appeared in many forms in many cultures across millennia. One work cited as the earliest known precursor of “Little Red Riding Hood,” recorded by 11th-century teacher Egbert of Liège in modern-day Belgium, includes mention of a wandering girl in a red baptism tunic who falls into the clutches of a wolf. 

Perrault published a far more developed story with the familiar beats of the wolf disguising himself as the grandmother and the “What big eyes you have!” back-and-forth, although his tale ends with the hungry animal simply gobbling up Little Red. The Brothers Grimm variants of “Little Red Cap” are even less appropriate for young ears, as they conclude with a punitive death for the wolf.

The Pied Piper

The story of the Pied Piper, a colorfully dressed musician who lures away the children of a town after he was failed to be paid for his services, earned a chapter from the Brothers Grimm before becoming the subject of a famous 1842 poem by Robert Browning. However, this is one fairy tale that has definitive roots in a real-life event. 

According to records of the German town of Hamelin, on June 26, 1284, some 130 children were led away by a multicolored-clad piper and never returned. Historians have since tried to determine what may have transpired, with theories ranging from the vanishing being part of a population migration to a peculiar “dancing mania” that prompted afflicted people to flail around until the point of exhaustion or even death. But the real answer to this centuries-old mystery will likely never be known, adding another layer of intrigue to a fairy tale that retains an ominous undercurrent even today.

NASA’s Erroneous Equation 

In 1962, NASA launched the unmanned Mariner 1 spacecraft from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a mission to fly by the planet Venus. Shortly after liftoff, however, the rocket veered off course and was almost immediately destroyed. The culprit? A tiny typo. The omission of an overbar for the symbol “R” for radius (a simple “R” instead of “R̅”) in an equation caused a program to not respond as planned, forcing NASA to explode the wayward (and highly expensive) rocket for safety reasons. Mariner 1 had cost NASA about $80 million to build (more than $850 million in today’s money), and its journey lasted mere seconds. 

When “Exotic” Became “Erotic”

When Gloria Quinan, owner of Banner Travel Agency in California, placed an advertisement in the 1988 Yellow Pages to promote her “exotic” travel business, she began receiving some strange calls. She soon found out that Pacific Bell, the company behind Yellow Pages, had made a somewhat risqué typo: Instead of “exotic,” they had written “erotic.” Quinan said that answering calls from so many people seeking an erotic travel experience negatively affected her business and her mental health, and she sued Pacific Bell for $10 million. The case was settled quietly out of court but likely ended up being a costly typo for Pacific Bell. 

Mizuho Securities’ Expensive Error 

The Tokyo Stock Exchange was caught up in a moment of madness in 2005 when a data-entry error caused a trader for Mizuho Securities to accidentally sell 610,000 shares at 1 yen apiece, when he should have been selling just 1 share at 610,000 yen. The Tokyo Stock Exchange refused to reverse the error, costing the company a whopping 27 billion yen — about $225 million.

A Costly Phone Drop

In 2019, a typo erroneously overvalued a single home in Wasatch County, Utah, creating revenue shortfalls in five of the county’s taxing entities. The home was recorded in the tax rolls with a market rate value of $987 million and a taxable value that was $543 million more than what it should have been — which was just $302,000. The numerical typo, which was reportedly caused by an employee dropping his phone on a keyboard, ultimately resulted in a countywide overvaluation of more than $6 million. Innocent taxpayers were soon warned to expect increased tax rates for upwards of three years to pay off the unfortunate error. 

A Very Expensive “Son”

Back in 2009, Companies House, a government agency that acts as the registrar for all companies in the U.K., made a grave error. The agency r stated that Taylor & Sons — a Welsh engineering firm that had existed for 124 years — had gone into liquidation. But Companies House had gotten the wrong company. It should have been looking at Taylor & Son, rather than the plural “Sons.” It corrected the error three days later, but the damage had already been done, irrevocably tarnishing the reputation of Taylor & Sons, which collapsed and was eventually dissolved in 2014. Taylor & Sons sued, alleging damages of £8.8 million (over $14 million USD), and a court battle followed. While a judge initially ruled in favor of the slandered engineering firm, the two parties later settled for an undisclosed amount — all because of an errant “s.” 

A Plane and Simple Typo

A 5,554-mile flight for just $39 sounds like quite a bargain — and for some lucky travelers, it was exactly that. But for Italy’s Alitalia, it was a huge mistake. Due to a typo, the airline listed a business-class ticket from Toronto to Cyprus in 2006 for $39 instead of $3,900. Within hours, around 2,000 people had purchased the too-good-to-be-true ticket. The airline, fearing a massive PR backlash should it cancel the tickets, decided instead to honor them — at a loss of $7.2 million. 

What We Lose Without Cursive

Though cursive may be less practical than other forms of writing today, nostalgia lingers. Cursive is more than just pretty penmanship; it connects us to the past in a literal way. The Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, soldiers’ letters home, and many historical diaries are all are written in cursive. Without the ability to read it, future generations risk losing direct access to these documents.

In her widely read Atlantic article, Faust argued that this loss is not trivial. Relying on experts or software to “translate” old handwriting puts distance between people and their own history. Even in everyday life, not being able to read a grandparent’s letters or decipher a handwritten recipe represents a small but meaningful rupture in cultural continuity.

There’s also the simple tactile joy of cursive. Anyone who remembers the thrill of getting their first fountain pen, or the way a signature can feel like an extension of the self, understands its emotional weight. Cursive embodies the idea of writing as a personal expression, not just a utilitarian skill.

Cursive Makes a Comeback

Fortunately, cursive is not gone just yet. In fact, it’s staging a comeback. As of 2025, 25 U.S. states require some form of cursive instruction in schools. California, which stopped teaching it in 2010, reinstated the requirement in January 2024 for grades one through six.

Supporters see this as more than a nostalgic gesture, arguing that neuroscience research supports the idea that writing in cursive activates brain pathways that help with learning and language development. 

Even so, instruction is inconsistent. In many of the states that require cursive instruction, that requirement is neither enforced nor funded, meaning that teachers will be forced to squeeze cursive into already crowded lesson plans.

A Script for the Future

The return of cursive instruction doesn’t mean children will stop learning to type, and digital literacy remains essential. But California’s move — and similar laws in other states — suggests that many educators and policymakers believe there is still room for the old alongside the new.

Perhaps cursive’s survival is not so much about utility as it is about connection. In a world where so much of our communication vanishes into screens, cursive offers something tangible — ink pressed into paper, loops and swirls carrying the imprint of a hand. It links students not just to their own learning but to the generations before them.

We may never return to a time when cursive was the default way of writing, but its resurgence suggests that we are not ready to let go of it entirely. Cursive endures as a bridge between past and present, history and memory, function and art. And as long as children are still being taught to form their letters in flowing script, the story of cursive is not over yet.

Where Did the Characters Romeo and Juliet Come From?

Understanding Shakespeare starts with understanding that the playwright was adept at taking existing stories and spinning them into his own work for the theater. Sometimes, the Bard even borrowed character names. The titular names in Romeo and Juliet also have Italian roots, first appearing in Italian writer Luigi Da Porto’s tale Giulietta e Romeo, in his novel Historia novellamente ritrovata di due nobili amanti (A Newly Discovered History of Two Noble Lovers). Published in 1531, Da Porto’s work enjoyed widespread popularity in Europe long before Shakespeare penned his play. Da Porto himself took inspiration from 15th-century Italian poet Masuccio Salernitano, who included a similar tragic love story in his 50-story collection Il Novellino, published in 1476. His story of Mariotto and Gianozza of Siena (a city around 200 miles from Verona) is considered the earliest known version of the Romeo and Juliet tale, and the source material for Da Porto’s Giulietta e Romeo. Salernitano’s version includes a secret marriage and a sleeping potion, but many other details differ from the familiar Shakespearean tale, and the lovers die by different means.

Shakespeare Didn’t Create the Star-Crossed Lovers Trope

The framework for Romeo and Juliet also didn’t originate with Shakespeare — it’s a plot that is almost certainly as old as storytelling itself. Ovid’s Metamorphoses, published in 8 CE, contains the oldest surviving version of the familiar plot, but even the Roman poet was inspired by other myths. In Ovid’s tale, Pyramus and Thisbe are a pair of Babylonian lovers whose parents forbid them to marry. When the couple sneaks off to meet near a mulberry tree, Thisbe is frightened by a lion and flees, leaving her cloak behind. Pyramus finds the cloak and, believing his love has been killed, falls on his sword. When Thisbe finds his body, she then takes her own life with the same sword.

Ovid’s timeless tale of doomed lovers may have inspired other writers to take a metaphorical stab at their own tragic love stories. Shakespeare was certainly aware of the story of Pyramus and Thisbe: His play A Midsummer Night’s Dream — written around the same time as Romeo and Juliet — includes a play-within-a-play involving a group of amateur actors known as the “rude mechanicals” who perform a version of Ovid’s tale. But despite this homage, tracing the connection between Ovid and Romeo and Juliet is not a straight line. Shakespeare’s inspiration likely came from a variety of sources and motifs used by other writers, including English poet Arthur Brooke’s 1562 narrative poem “The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet.” That poem was itself based on the French translation of a story in Italian writer Matteo Bandello’s Novelle (Stories) and influenced by Geoffrey Chaucer’s 14th-century epic poem “Troilus and Criseyde.” Shakespeare’s play incorporates changes Brooke made to Bandello’s version of the lovers’ tale, leading scholars to believe that Brooke’s poem was Shakespeare’s main source of inspiration.