Muphry's Law and Poor Little Rich Word

Muphry's Law struck again this week. (Yes that's Muphry, not Murphy. See "Eating My Own Words.")

Even though (or was it because?) I proofread it myself, the first line in my column went to print with a catastrophic error: Instead of "You can't be too rich or too thin," the first sentence said, "You can't be too rich or too poor."

Argh!

Besides making no sense, it killed the whole lead of the article. Thank Heaven, the layout guy corrected the online article. (I told him I'm going to call him before Yom Kippur to remove some other transgressions for me.)

So, here it is again:

Poor Little Rich Word

“You can’t be too rich or too thin.” Barry Popik, contributor to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), and the Sherlock Holmes of etymology, traces this slogan to several disreputable socialites.…

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