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Think You Know How To Spell That Famous Person's Name? Don't Trust Your Memory

The number of misspelled names that have made their way into digital stories has edged down in the past couple weeks and we're catching more of them in scripts and other places before publication. Thank you.

But the evidence indicates we have a bad habit. It looks like we're not always double-checking the spelling of some familiar folks' names. We must be trusting our memories.

Some examples from recent months follow. We have:

  • More than once referred to Sen. Lindsey Graham as Sen. Lindsay Graham.
  • Many times left the "h" out of British Prime Minister Theresa May's first name.
  • Added an "e" to Sen. Cory Booker's first name.
  • Put the "u" in the wrong place when referring to George Stephanopoulos.
  • Transposed the "e" and the "i" Cicely Tyson's first name.
  • The names of famous folks are easy to double-check before sending a script or story to be edited and before hitting "publish." Please make sure you do.

    Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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    Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.