One thing a journalist should never, ever do: reference anything written by J.R.R. Tolkien. Nowhere in geekdom are there fans who are more well-versed in the minutiae and fine points of their favorite story, and should you get any little point wrong concerning Middle Earth, they pounce on you like an army of Orcs. The New York Times found this out the hard way last week when the Gray Lady wrote a piece about Mets pitcher R.A. Dickey, and his habit of naming his baseball bats after things found in Beowulf and Lord of the Rings. Except the article got something wrong, apparently. This led to the following correction:
In the original piece, it said: “One bat іѕ called Orcrist thе Goblin Ax аnd thе οthеr іѕ Hrunting. Dickey, аn avid reader, ѕаіd thаt Orcrist came frοm Thе Hobbit; іt іѕ thе blade Bilbo Baggins uses іn thе Misty Mountains. Hrunting — thе H іѕ ѕіlеnt, Dickey ѕаіd—came frοm thе epic poem Beowulf; іt іѕ thе sword Beowulf uses tο kіll Grendel’s mother.” However, as the correction points out, “Orcrist was the sword used by the dwarf Thorin Oakenshield in the book.” Thus, the Times, and Dickey to a lesser extent, were publicly shamed by Middle Earth enthusiasts the internet over. One reddit user aptly reads between the lines: “Read as: ‘Please, please, for the love of God just stop writing in about it….’ “
But then The Dugout checked in with the best account of the incident so far:
Meanwhile … scroll ahead to the 3:40 mark:
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Is This The Greatest NY Times Correction Of All Time? [Gothamist]
