Here?s Lookin? At You, ?Bogyman?

We were perplexed when the Business Matters section of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette carried a huge front page headline on Aug. 30 stating: “The new BOGYMAN BACTERIA.” The section’s center spread also used the same headline.

We could have sworn it was “bogeyman.” But when we looked it up in the third edition of Webster’s Third Word New Collegiate Dictionary, the dictionary recommended by The Associated Press, we discovered we were both wrong. The preferred spelling is “boogeyman,” although the other two are acceptable in uses other than journalism.

The definition? “A frightening imaginary being, often one used as a threat in disciplining children.”

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “The Bogey Man” was a song popular in England in 1890. It spawned the word “bogey” in golf, which means one stroke more than par on a hole.

(Of course, we hope nobody noticed the way we spelled Webb Hubbell’s name in the Whispers section of our last issue. Afterwards, we were informed by our publisher that Hubbell is not a telescope.)