Pharaoh or Pharoah? - West Valley City, UT, USA
N 40° 41.108 W 111° 55.812
12T E 421397 N 4504220
Since the early 1970s, this street sign in West Valley City, Utah, has been mislabeled as Pharoah Road. Recently, the city has added new street signage, with the correct spelling, but left the original street sign with the incorrect spelling.
Waymark Code: WMHQWF
Location: Utah, United States
Date Posted: 08/06/2013
Views: 7
I have to admit that I grew up on this street and because of the street sign, always thought the correct spelling was Pharoah. Doh! Another childhood institution shot down in flames!
I stopped by here recently, and spotted the new signs for Pharaoh Road and Pharaoh Circle installed by the city, but they left the old sign that has the misspelled street name. I wonder how this street is spelled in the county records for parcel property identification? Hmmm...
I found this article online (
visit link) that describes the confusion:
"TYPO OF THE DAY FOR LIBRARIANS
Pharoah* (for Pharaoh*)
Pharoah* is more than a mere typo. It's a very commonly misspelled word, turning up 329 times in OhioLINK. However, given that NACO shows seven personal names correctly spelled "Pharoah," some of those results are undoubtedly proper names. An author search on Pharoah* brings up 14 records, which may or may not contain misspellings. A keyword search on Pharoah* + Pharaoh* gets 32, which definitely do. Overall, quite a few typos here waiting to be excavated.