This is the pedestal of the statue of Horace Greeley in Greeley Square, that patch of ground just downtown from Macy’s and west of K-town that has the pay toilets. In this case, Greeley is memorialized as the first president of the New York Typographical Society, and herein lies the irony. Can you spot the typo?
Granted, even when you click through to the larger image, it’s blurry. So here’s the text retyped for your editorial perusal:
NEW YORK TYPOGRAPHICAL UNION NO 6
WAS PRESENTED TO THE CITY OF NEW YORK BY
HORACE GREELEY•POST NO 577 G.A.R.
NEW YORK TYPOGRAPHICAL UNION NO. 6 AND
BROOKLYN TYPOGRAPHICAL UNION NO. 98
See it yet?
Mysteriously, the first to two instances of the abbreviation NO lack periods, while the second two instances take them. How weird is that? And you can’t even argue that different unions had different usages, because NEW YORK TYPOGRAPHICAL UNION NO 6/NO. 6 is the same friggin’ union!
Let’s just hope some typographical union thugs worked that engraver over but good.
Is it not equally ironic that you’ve mistakenly used “to” instead of “two” in a post about typographical errors?
I wouldn’t normally comment, I swear, because I adore the premise of the blog, but if a girl can’t comment on grammar errors in a blog about grammar errors, where can she?
It is indeed ironic. Two ironic, if you ask me. Are you sure it isn’t irwonic?
And yes, it is absolutely within the spirit of this blog to call me on my errors of grammar, usage, spelling and typography.
And no, alas, I wasn’t just testing you. Ywo. Whatever.