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Greatest Shits
Posted by: BuckFutterman ()
Date: March 03, 2012 09:02PM

Proquest is an electronic publisher that archives a lot of different publications, including old newspapers. They make the original scanned images avaiable as PDF files, but they also run optical character recognition(OCR) on the articles to to convert them to text files, so that they can load the files into their database for easy searching. However, while OCR has improved greatly over the years, it's not perfect, as these examples obtained from searching Proquest's Historical Washington Post database show.

Every one of these images is a screen shot of a real Proquest search result.

file.php?40,file=53850,filename=ShitMove
I have these too, but I never thought of them as newsworthy.
Real Article: "Ship Movements" http://search.proquest.com/docview/151081825?accountid=34227

file.php?40,file=53851,filename=LibelShi
Slander is spoken, libel is written, but they usually use ink for the latter.
Real Article: "New Trial Is Granted In Political Libel Suit" http://search.proquest.com/docview/142089044?accountid=34227

file.php?40,file=53852,filename=Internal
If you don't want to experience internal turmoil, don't eat at an Indian restaurant in Mexico.

file.php?40,file=53853,filename=SchoolSh
Hopefully, toilet paper was one of the line items in that budget.
Real Article: "School Unit Considers Budget Shift" http://search.proquest.com/docview/146405840?accountid=34227

file.php?40,file=53854,filename=PowerShi
So, were they dumping power or power dumping?
Real Article: "Electricity Transfer to East Set: Utilities Set to Ship Power to East" http://search.proquest.com/docview/146235654?accountid=34227

file.php?40,file=53855,filename=shitfire
Someone played the old flaming-paper-bag-on-the-doorstep-trick on this guy.
Real Article: "Iranian Praised As Ship Fire Hero" http://search.proquest.com/docview/142627893?accountid=34227

file.php?40,file=53856,filename=SportySh
Every good coach has a few trick plays in their playbook.

file.php?40,file=53857,filename=EditorsS
I've heard of crappy pay, but...
Real Article: "An Editor's Suit For Salary" http://search.proquest.com/docview/138846059?accountid=34227

file.php?40,file=53858,filename=DrHuShit
Who was their speaker at the next meeting? Dr. I. Farted?
Real Article: "Dr. Hu Shih To Address Political Club" http://search.proquest.com/docview/151413312?accountid=34227

file.php?40,file=53859,filename=MusicalS
I wonder if the audience demanded an encore?
Real Article: "Three Present Musical Skit At Zonta Meeting" http://search.proquest.com/docview/151436257?accountid=34227

If you have a Fairfax County Library card, you can log onto Proquest's Historical Washington Post Archive at http://search.proquest.com/hnpwashingtonpost/barcode?accountid=34227&groupid=72504

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