A small southeast Indiana town was supposed to be named Comet, after the Great Comet of 1881. But a misunderstanding between the local postmaster and U.S. Post Office officials resulted in the town incorrectly being called Correct. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “How Correct, Indiana, Was Named”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette. We had a voicemail from Jason Schrader who said that his great-grandmother grew up in the tiny town of Correct, Indiana. Correct, Indiana. Correct, spelled like you might be. C-O-R-R-E-C-T, correct. Correct, Indiana.
And he wanted to know why it’s called Correct, Indiana. So I reached out to our friends at the Indiana Historical Society, and they confirmed that indeed in southeastern Indiana, there’s a town called Correct. And the story behind it is kind of fun, because historically, prospective postmasters could suggest post office names when a community started to coalesce and they needed a post office.
And so what happened in that part of Indiana was they wanted to establish a post office, and the prospective postmaster wrote to the U.S. Post Office Department, as it was called then, and suggested a name. Now, this was in 1881, and that was the year of the Great Comet of 1881. There was a spectacular comet that could be seen in Indiana, and so he thought, well, gosh, that’d be a great name, Comet.
So he writes this on the form and sends it to the post office department, but the post office had a hard time reading his handwriting. So they returned it back to him with a card that said Comet on it, asking him to confirm, is that the name you want? And instead of saying, yeah, I want to call it Comet or yes, that’s right, he wrote correct and sent it back.
And so they thought, oh, we got it wrong the first time. They don’t want to call it Comet. He wants to call it correct.
Well, that’s a little bit weird, but okay.
Oh, goodness.
And so it wasn’t the way he wrote the word comet. It was a misunderstanding about his response to the request for verification.
So there is indeed a Correct, Indiana, Grant.
I think the next time we go to Indiana, we need to run down to Correct and get a picture next to that sign that announces the town.
Oh, that’s a good one, though.
So many of these place names are like, oh, let’s just name it after the town in the old world. But there’s something to this one, right?
Tell us your story about how you got your name or you named your pet or the town got named or the name of your book or what you call your car.
We love names. It’s a part of language and it’s something we can’t do without.
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