February 24, 2005, 17:25
LoudNotes"hand by a hair"
I think I might have found a typo in dictionary.com. I was looking for some background on the sword of Damocles, and it referenced the similar expressions "hang by a thread" but also "hand by a hair." This wouldn't be such a big deal if it weren't repeated several times in the definition and links to it, not to mention picked up by a couple dozen mirror dictionaries (the only google results for the phrase)
The main reason I mention this: Should the
d in "hand" be a
g or is this just something I've never heard of?
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=hand%20by%20a%20hairFebruary 24, 2005, 19:57
KallehBoy, I have never heard of this, either. While, it wasn't in Onelook, I also found it in
HyperDic...or is HyperDic a "mirror dictionary?" I was surprised that Onelook didn't pick it up since they do have Dictionary.com as one of their sources.
It surely seems to me that it should be "hang by a hair." How about the rest of you?
February 25, 2005, 01:47
Richard EnglishI wonder if this was something scanned in, and the OCR program made a mistake. Certainly the proof-readers (a vanishing breed?) should have picked it up.
February 25, 2005, 12:35
KallehIt's interesting that when some respected site, like Dictionary.com, gets something wrong, suddenly lots of other sites are filled with the same error. I know there is a word for the misspellings or misquotes that appear in Google because we have posted about it; I can't seem to remember it right now.