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Mistakes are public: The foot-high erratum

In the 1920s, as the Lincoln Memorial was constructed, one of the people carving part of Lincoln's second inaugural address into the northern interior wall made a mistake, turning FUTURE into EUTURE. As the National Park Service explains, the extra line on the letter was filled in, but it's still visible, as I saw when visiting the memorial on Friday.

It is something to keep in mind about errors: they happen, and sometimes they're in a place where everyone notices. You can either pretend they don't exist, or you can fix them. That's generally your choice, not whether others see your goofs.

One response to “Mistakes are public: The foot-high erratum”

  1. Larry Cebula

    If it had been me, I would have denied everything, blamed someone else, then launched a war to distract people.

    Good thing it wasn’t me.