
'Oh no, I spelled it wrong': Nurse runs solo marathon in shape of 'Boston Strog' - mgsouth
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/oh-no-i-spelled-it-wrong-nurse-runs-solo-marathon-in-shape-of-boston-strog-1.5541268
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preinheimer
See also: the Brookyln Bridge poster -

[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cameronmoll/the-
brookly...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cameronmoll/the-brooklyn-
bridge-in-letterpress-type/posts/704856)

~~~
laxatives
Happens all the time when you are type setting, like writing in LaTeX. Its not
designed to be your word processor and its easy to think you making minor
edits/fixes when you are really quietly destroying everything you had already
revised dozens of times.

~~~
gorgoiler
What’s a good alternative workflow? I’d be quite interested to know as what
you said identifies with what I’ve experienced.

~~~
laxatives
I think getting your source file into Github and having it go through peer-
review is the best way to avoid these types of issues. Also changing the diff
format from 'diff-by-line' to 'diff-by-word' improves readability a lot.

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boublepop
Call me a cynic but these days it just seems like “mistakes” like these and
the many examples from commercials and games must be deliberate. I mean why
try to aim for something flawless when intentional mistakes can help make your
content go viral.

~~~
rimutaka
It's a painful "mistake". Running a marathon is painful. Your legs run out of
glycogen after about 30km and all you can think of is "I want to stop". I'm
surprised her mind was sharp enough to pick up the mistake.

Time: 3h 46m, pace: 5:21. That's fast for what is more like a training run.
She could probably do solid 5:00 pace in a real competition.

[https://www.strava.com/activities/3326004383](https://www.strava.com/activities/3326004383)

~~~
amelius
I think parent meant that it may have been planned _before_ the actual
running. Also, forgetting one letter is less painful than having surplus
letters.

~~~
amelius
By the way, if you look at that map, the path would require more spacing
between the O and the G, because the vertical pillars of N would otherwise
overlap with the vertical lines in O and G. Compare with the spacing between O
and N in "BOSTON".

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laurieg
My favourite spelling mistake is from the Nottingham County Gaol and is all
the worse for being set in stone:

[https://i.imgur.com/h6XiZE3.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/h6XiZE3.jpg)

Take a close look at the word "gaol". Originally, the stone mason spelt it as
goal and had to try to tidy it up as best he could.

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markstos
Hats off to her.

I ran a marathon-distance run each of the last four weekends and all I managed
to spell was "O".

Good way to escape the news cycle for a few hours!

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mgsouth
> _It took Lindsay Devers months of training and meticulous planning to plot
> out her marathon-length run along the Boston riverside to spell out an
> inspirational message for her city.

But in the end, she forgot one important thing — the letter N._

QA failure :) She had multiple friends look over the plan, and everybody
missed it.

~~~
goldenkey
Sounds like BS. Probably just a publicity stunt. I mean, if you draw out the
route first, you clearly are gonna notice the N missing. Only way this is
believable is if she didn't draw it out first. That seems a rather arcane way
to plan something (as verbal directions -- turn here, turn there, etc..) I
think any sane person would just draw it out like a maze.

~~~
prawn
You can see where she should’ve started the S but didn’t go far enough. Then
must’ve seen the park and run the G as planned.

~~~
goldenkey
?? The N is missing. Not the S

~~~
prawn
I’m saying she planned to start the S one block further on to the left of the
image but messed up at some point. She knew she needed to finish the G before
the park. So she started the S in the wrong place, continued TRO and then
thought she must’ve been up to the G given the park was in sight. If she
started the S a block to the left, it would’ve been centred with BOSTON.

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runnr_az
Lots of good weirdness out there in the ultra running world. This dude ran 70k
around his kitchen table!
[https://twitter.com/kilianj/status/1253576272707551232](https://twitter.com/kilianj/status/1253576272707551232)

~~~
schoen
Wow, a considerably smaller radius than the race that runs around one city
block over 5,000 times:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-
Transcendence_3100_Mile_R...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-
Transcendence_3100_Mile_Race)

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brockwhittaker
"Boston strog" is how you would say "Boston Strong" if you had a cold,
perhaps.

Cute.

~~~
bitwize
That would be "Bostod Strog"

~~~
arcticbull
So it would be how you would sound out "Boston Strong" if you developed a cold
half way through the marathon haha.

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hinkley
> All these times that we are currently having are so uncertain and I just
> wanted to, like, show that there's a little bit of normalcy still in life.

What’s more normal than a very public typo?

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cultus
It least it wasn't Boston Strogg.

~~~
solstice
So we can rule out she's a Quake fan?

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gorgoiler
Owning a mistake like that so openly is pretty inspiring, in an already upbeat
story.

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brenden2
Tangentially related: I rode cross country (on a bike) from SF to NYC, and on
the last day when I arrived in Manhattan (around 3 or 4am, I think) I decided
to write LOL in SoHo with the GPS.

If you happen to have a Strava account (I don't use Strava anymore) you can
see it here by zooming in on Manhattan:
[https://www.strava.com/activities/685757465](https://www.strava.com/activities/685757465)

Edit: just realized it's also available from Garmin:
[https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1316969958](https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1316969958)

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ck2
of course so much better than if she did it right, imagine the fun laughter
someday if you wore this as a t-shirt at the race

but seriously, wtf who registered the domain name?!

------
sharkweek
“That’s great! But who are the Chefs?”

[https://youtu.be/m9zQLSS9LHw](https://youtu.be/m9zQLSS9LHw)

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yellow_lead
"Oops, look at me!"

------
mattlondon
Ironically enough, they also _spelt_ the title wrong too.

I guess this is one of those en-US-vs-the-rest-of-the-english-speaking-world
weirdnesses? I've never seen/heard "spelled" before in my native-English-
speaking life as far I can remember.

~~~
tropdrop
British is _spelt_. US is _spelled_. [1] [2]

1 - [https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spell](https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/spell)

2 - [https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spelt](https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/spelt)

~~~
generatorguy
The CBC should be using British spelling!!

~~~
jkaplowitz
Canadian spelling is a hybrid of British and American. For example, centre not
center, but aluminum not aluminum.

For this particular word (spelled/spelt), British spelling allows both forms
interchangeably, with spelled mildly preferred in Canada but both may be
found:

[https://grammarist.com/spelling/spelled-
spelt/](https://grammarist.com/spelling/spelled-spelt/)

~~~
mkl
> aluminum not aluminum

Looks like you mean "aluminum not aluminium"?

~~~
jkaplowitz
Hah, yes. Thanks for the important correction!

