A hilarious news story about a pair of heroic terriers that chase off a bear from a California home leads to an equally hilarious correction about the difference between black bears and brown bears. Big ups to Squirt and Mei Mei! This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “A Brown Bear but Not a Brown Bear“
I don’t know about you, but I am a fan of a good newspaper correction, and I love the one that ran
Recently in a San Francisco paper. You may have seen this article. It was about a big bear that
Wandered into the home of a Pasadena, California woman, and the bear was caught on the home security
Video. And it’s really worth looking up online because you see the bear wandering around in the
House and then it’s chased out by two fearless little terriers named Squirt and Maymay.
Which was wonderful in and of itself, but they had to run a correction at the end of this story,
Which went, editor’s note. A previous version of this story stated that the bear is a brown bear.
While it is a bear that is brown, it is not a brown bear.
It is a black bear that is brown.
The story has been updated to reflect this.
Meaning it is not the type of species known as the brown bear in common terms.
It’s brown, but it’s actually a black bear.
I love that.
And it’s parsable.
I mean, and it’s so fun because English is weird with that emphasis that we can do that.
It reminds me of the scene in Wreck-It Ralph where a lot of the bad guys from all the different video games are sitting around having a kind of a group therapy session.
And one of the guys, I think, plays a wrestler character, says to the guys, you’re a bad guy, but you’re not a bad guy.
Oh, I see.
Like, you’re a brown bear, but you’re not a brown bear.
Yeah.
Send us your favorite newspaper corrections or other thoughts about language.
877-929-9673 or email it to words@waywordradio.org.
