WWWTP? – Eli Lilly Award Edition
March 4th, 2012I am a bit behind in reading my C&ENs. It might be just as well, as yesterday, I was dismayed by an advertisement placed by Lilly on the inside cover of the 20 February 2012 issue:
I can think of no worse way to honor an outstanding, up-and-coming chemist than to misspell his name in the pages of the official news magazine of the American Chemical Society:
How insulting. For the record, it is T-e-h-s-h-i-k Yoon, and you can view his interesting work in synthesis and photochemistry here or follow him on Twitter at @TehshikYoon.
The error aside, Lilly has picked a fine group of chemists over the years, haven’t they? Most of the biggies in organic chemistry have found themselves on the receiving end of Lilly’s grant, and all were chosen when they were young and juicy. It’s definitely a list worth showing off in a full-page ad, but preferably one without an obvious spelling error.
Update (8:50pm): An astute reader e-mailed to say that the ad also messed up the spelling of Amir Hoveyda‘s name. Click on the top pic and see for yourself. Ouch.
Update II (4:10am): The hits keep coming…commenters ZAL and See Arr Oh point out that Lilly also misspelled the names of Glenn Micalizio and André Charette.
Update III (3/6): Commenter Giagan points out Tom Lectka‘s name is also misspelled. Ugh.
March 4th, 2012 at 5:30 PM
… and it was through that ad that I learned that Vy Dong is leaving the University of Toronto (as of this coming summer, apparently).
March 4th, 2012 at 6:05 PM
Is this just a crazy year for faculty migration, or is it just me?
March 4th, 2012 at 7:27 PM
For the record, (1) Lilly called before the ad was published with an incredibly gracious and generous apology, and (2) this is hardly the first or most egregious misspelling of my name. People with unusual names learn not to get offended by this sort of thing really early on.
March 4th, 2012 at 7:38 PM
A perfect response by Lilly.
Anyway, I am just posting all of the errors I find in C&EN to bolster my chances of securing a job as a copy editor when ACS Origins of Life launches in 2013.
March 4th, 2012 at 7:47 PM
Generous? or Generou$?
March 4th, 2012 at 8:12 PM
@SeeArrOh: We need to quantify this. (waggles eyebrows) But I think that Paul has done a lot to bring it to the forefront of our thoughts.
March 4th, 2012 at 8:18 PM
Chemjobber/See Arr Oh: It would also be interesting to track how many departments advertised positions this year but elected not to hire anyone.
March 5th, 2012 at 1:04 AM
Well, I think they also removed an “i” from Glenn Micalizio’s name!
March 5th, 2012 at 1:25 AM
Well, I won’t ruin this fun game for everyone else who wants to play at home, but @ZAL is right…
Sadly, Andre Charette and Amir Hoveyda are also misspelled!!!
http://charette.corg.umontreal.ca/home.html
https://www2.bc.edu/~hoveyda/
March 5th, 2012 at 1:28 AM
And yet, somehow “Katzenellenbogen” remains unscathed…
March 5th, 2012 at 4:20 AM
Also peculiar how we see “M. Christina White” and “P. Andrew Evans” but not “K. Barry Sharpless” or “F. Dean Toste”
March 5th, 2012 at 11:42 AM
Ah, sigh, I’m an offender with misspelling Tehshik’s name, and he’s even an old friend. But at least I did my typo on Twitter, and not in an expensive, edited ad!
Despite my own wrongs in this department, Tehshik is more patient than I am with poor spellers. Anyone who sends me an email that starts with “Dear Lisa” drops several rungs in my estimation.
March 5th, 2012 at 1:23 PM
Here’s yet another error:
1998 – Thomas Leckta
That should be Lectka: http://www.jhu.edu/chem/lectka/Tom.html
March 5th, 2012 at 4:12 PM
So they could not possibly retype the names every year, right? So that means that they’ve been wrong for quite some time? (Going home to rummage through box of old C&ENs…)
March 5th, 2012 at 10:02 PM
Wow, Irvine stole Dong. So much for UC’s fiscal woes being a problem for UC Irvine.
March 6th, 2012 at 7:20 AM
It’s Woodweird. Not Woodwierd. Not Woodwired.
March 6th, 2012 at 10:14 AM
Vy Dong was an undergrad at UCI with Overman, so I’d imagine he had some influence.
March 7th, 2012 at 11:11 AM
You know, if they can’t manage to spell a four-letter name (and one that isn’t that rare), they probably should drop in your estimation.
If someone can’t recall four letter names, what happens with phone numbers? or PINs? “Sorry, can you please give me money – I can only remember three digits at a time.”
March 8th, 2012 at 8:05 AM
UCI suspended their assistant professor search (materials chemistry), ostensibly to pay for dong.