“CARBARIANS”

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17231, 10 April 1930, Page 4

“CARBARIANS”

A PRECIOUS MISPRINT When next you see a driver dodging in and out of the traffic on Gladstone road, breaking all the laws, write him off as a “carbarian.” By such a simple thing as a compositor’s error, almost a daily happening in the realm of journalism, the London Times has presented posterity with a brand new word. In a subleader, not long ago, their writer was discussing the position held by the Greeks before rapid wheeled transport or “hogging’’ were ever thought of, and referred to the anoient Athenians looking down a world filled with barbarians. On the proof, by that accidental s)ip, which sometimes adds a touch of genius to the commonplace, the last word read “carbarians.” “It seemed a shame,” the writer in the Times explained, “to alter the accidental slip. But the gift was only delayed. We offer it now—carbarian—as the perfect name for those who. drive to the public danger, those who lack the manners of the road and defy the tradition of tlie road, the young carbarians, all at play in their motor coaches, the innumerable divisions of the class inadequatelv named roadhog. Such a misprint is hard to parallel, for. few of these mistakes are creative. Thus appears a new word with which Printing House Square enriches the language.”