Lake of the Lillies (sic)

I love a really big, hard to correct, misspelling. A typo in a book is easily overlooked (that's why they're typos) unless, like me, you spent 30 years worrying about them. But misspellings in other media are so much harder to understand. I've seen them in neon (PAY ALL UTILITES), in metal ("waterflow" for "waterfowl" on a sign at Magee Marsh), on silkscreened banners ("FRAMERS" for "FARMERS"), and today, carved in wood. There is a psychological law of perception in which you see what you expect to see, not what you are actually seeing. I have stood in front of botched signs with someone (not mentioning any names) and said, "Read the sign.... again...again." It usually takes 3 readings for the error to pop out. 

Today, while I was walking around 3 sides of the Lake of the Lilies in Point Pleasant Beach, I came to the southeast corner where there is a small grove of trees that sometimes holds a few passerines with which to pad your list. In front of this grove there is the sign above. I took one look at it, took a photo with my phone, and sent it to a birder friend who lives in "Point Beach." 

"Ever notice that this sign is misspelled?" I texted her. 

Immediately an answer came back that yes, she had, and had thought about asking the municipal authorities to correct it. However, whoever carved the sign may have been unwittingly copying a mistake, since the misspelling goes back many years and appears on old maps of Point Pleasant Beach, as evidenced by some pics she sent me. It is a cartographer's trick to put in a few mistakes in a map to have evidence should the map ever be plagiarized. I'm wondering if that's what happened here. It is also listed as a "variant" in the 1983 USGS Gazetteer for New Jersey (a page of which she also sent me) along with the variants Eskins Pond and Old Sams Pond*. It has also gone under the name of Mineral Lake. All very interesting, but "Lillies" is wrong. 

Now, I admit, that whenever I type the word "lily" I have to think about it. It seems like it should have two ells. But that's the point: I think about. I pause. I check. If I was carving a sign, I wouldn't just start hacking away with a chisel without confirming every letter I was about to chisel. It is congruent with the carpenter's law of "Measure twice, cut once." 

As to the bird life in the grove itself: one Song Sparrow, one Northern Mockingbird, and a horde of House Sparrows. 

But the sign made the walk worth it. 

*Without the expected apostrophe.