How A Typo Saved an Ornithologist's Name

If you've followed me for awhile, you know that I am a certified nerd, and that means that I will always be here to rant about the importance of human creativity (read: HUMAN CREATIVITY), and how we need to rail against the overall degradation of our creative spirits and brains in any way we can.

On that note, I thought I'd share a fun (human!!) interaction about my latest audiobook. It involves a narrator, some very old documents, and the superbly intelligent people at the Smithsonian Museum Archives.

Yes, that Smithsonian. I told you in the subject line this is possibly my Rolling Stone moment.

Recently, I was fortunate enough to hear from one of my lovely publishers that my book Birdlore was set to be turned into an audiobook. Wonderful news! Florence Merriam Bailey's life, brought to your ears via the eloquent tones of none other than Ms. Jennifer Rubins. (I heard a snippet of her work -- she is truly fantastic!)

But then I realized: Wait...this means... oh dearie me...

We're going to have to figure out how to pronounce "Merriam", aren't we?

Seems easy, right?

It's just... Merriam.

Like, Mehr-ee-yum. Right? Like the dictionary people. Merriam Webster. Mehr-ee-um.

Or is it mare-ee-um?

Or maybe it's like... "Meer-ee-um"?

Shoot.

The more I said it, the more I questioned my sanity.

Previously, I'd allowed for the reality that, as readers, you all would basically decide for yourselves how to pronounce our lovely protagonist's name.

Live and let pronounce, as it were. I can't force correct pronunciation any more than I can force billionaires to hop on a glitchy rocket ship to Mars.

But this was a different story. Because it was (literally) an audio book. We had to be decisive. I couldn't let poor Jennifer be Meer-ee-umming in one place, whilst Mehr-ee-umming in another, could I?

How embarrassing.

Sure enough, the email came in. Iris, our savvy audiobook coordinator, hit me with the question:

"Sooo...Do you know how we need to be pronouncing Merriam?"

Truthfully, like any biased individual, I had my version. I was solidly in Camp Mehr, not Meer. The dictionary people on their Youtube channel support this, too!

But the scientist in me knew that vibes wouldn't cut it.

So I did what any neurospicy author would do: I set loose the researcher.

I contacted the folks at Cornell Bird Lab. The Library of Congress. I even did a poll of fellow intelligent people who might have, for whatever reason of their own making, a stake in this pronunciation.

And finally, I pulled out the big guns: The Smithsonian Archives.

They were amazing (of course), and after a lot of their own internal polling and deep diving, we hit an answer we all felt confident about:

It was MEHR-EE-UM.

Not Meer. Not Murr.

Mehr.

But here's the kicker: it wasn't the correct documentation that helped us land there -- it was the incorrect stuff.

The archivist found misspellings that supported the pronunciation we'd ascertained.

Check it out. She'd found:

"...a few incoming letters with misspellings that seemed to be based on pronunciation, rather than misreading the spelling: “Merriman” and “Mariam.” To me, these seem like evidence in support of our pronunciation--you wouldn’t pronounce “Merriman” like “Meeriman,” and “Mariam” would never be pronounced with an “ee” sound for the first vowel.”

Cool, right? Someone had spelled her name wrong, the way they thought it sounded at some point, and that helped us rule out the actual incorrect way of saying it.

The failures helped us find the right outcome.

Tiny little human inconsistencies and mistakes, paving the way for the true representation of the facts.

Because facts, despite recent turns, are actually still a thing.

And now, in 2026, 78 years after her death, Florence Merriam Bailey gets to be immortalized in audiobook form, with her name pronounced as she'd want it.

Small, human things. But also, some of the most meaningful, leaving historical traces of who we really are.

Just thought you'd enjoy this today.

-Jess

PS. This post isn't about word pronunciation. 😉

PPS. The Smithsonian did a cool feature on their Instagram about this interaction -- check it out and swipe through to see Florence in all of her glory!