Etc...

June 3, 2005

Monumental goof in stone

It's one thing to be lax with Latin written on paper, but engrave it in granite and you naturally expect a higher standard. For 16 years, though, no one in Greenville, N.C., noticed two spelling errors made on a monument to Pitt County's military veterans. Under the the Marine Corps emblem, "Semper Fidelis," or "always faithful" came out "Semper Fider," while the Coast Guard's "Semper Paratus," or "always ready" came out "Semper Haratus." These mistakes only recently came to the attention of the president of the local veterans council, which had commissioned Clifton & Clifton Monuments of Elizabeth City to craft the seven-foot slab that sits on Greenville's Town Common. A company spokesman said all inscriptions are proofread four times, so responsibility for the blooper had to lie with "whoever gave us the information. There's just no doubt." Clearly, though, this was one time that following orders led to mistakes. Guess the Latin was just Greek to the proofreader.

College lesson: accounting savvy may lead to a job

Given the trouble corporations can find themselves in when their numbers don't add up, hiring skilled (and ethical) accountants is a must. That may explain why so many employers said they were looking for college students with accounting degrees from the current graduating class. Accounting came out on top in the Job Outlook 2005 survey conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, which queried 254 companies about what they were looking for in new graduates. The college majors that most interest employers:

1. Accounting
2. Electrical engineering
3. Mechanical engineering
4. Business administration/management
5. Economics/finance
6. Computer science
7. Computer engineering
8. Marketing/marketing management
9. Chemical engineering
10. Information sciences and systems