June 4th, 2025
2 reactions

Riffing on a typo in the name of the opera Turandot

I turned on the radio in the car and heard what was identified by the Radio Data System information as a performance by the Metropolitan Opera of New York of Puccini’s Turnadot. Whoever entered the information introduced a typo, because the correct spelling is Turandot.¹

I joked, “Oh no, it’s opera! Turnadoff!”

When I related this clever pun to an old friend (who is now an orchestra conductor), he came back with this joke:

“Estate of Puccini here. We’d like to lodge a copyright violation.”

“No, we’re in compliance, Turnadot is Fair Play.”

I don’t know whether to compliment him or berate him.

¹ It’s hard to search the Internet for misspellings, because all the Web search engines “helpfully” fix the spelling for you, even if you tell them “No really, I want the misspelling.” I did find a Web site that listed the Metropolitan Opera performance as Turnadot, so who knows. Maybe it’s a thing now.

Author

Raymond has been involved in the evolution of Windows for more than 30 years. In 2003, he began a Web site known as The Old New Thing which has grown in popularity far beyond his wildest imagination, a development which still gives him the heebie-jeebies. The Web site spawned a book, coincidentally also titled The Old New Thing (Addison Wesley 2007). He occasionally appears on the Windows Dev Docs Twitter account to tell stories which convey no useful information.

2 comments

  • Joshua Hudson

    I had no trouble searching for the typo.

    First hit is this page.

    Second hit is an Amazon listing that has the same typo in the title but the body text is correct.

    Third hit is likewise, but with no correct text in the body; however the image is correct.

    Forth hit is a blog with the same typo in title.

    The typo is so common that I couldn’t determine if there are any non-typo pages other than this one.

  • ω 2 weeks ago

    I didn’t expect to find dad jokes here but I’m glad that I did.