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The Spelling Nazis Are at It Again!

Posted by Editormum on Tuesday, 19 August 2008 in Word and Phrase Origins |

Very amused by a recent exchange on the Forbes.com website, commenting on an article about multi-level marketing. One guy corrected another’s spelling, and lo, and behold, the wars were on! The argument was over which of two spellings was correct: bush league or Busch League. I did a little online research, and I share my surprising findings here, for the edification of my fellow blogging buddies.

Bush league and Busch League are both correct spellings! However, they have two very different uses.

“Bush-league” originated in the early 1900s as a term for minor league baseball teams not affiliated with a major league team, possibly because their ball fields were often ringed by shrubs and bushes.

The “Busch League,” more properly known as the Busch Series, is a NASCAR division for modified late-model short-track racers. The racing term dates back to 1982, though the series itself originated under a different name in the 1950s.

Of course, the usage in the article is correct: the author did mean “bush-league.” And the commenter who accused the author of ignorance was mistaken.

The moral of the story is that you should be very careful when correcting someone’s spelling or usage on a public forum, because an expert might show up and prove you wrong!

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