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The Bactrian Camel Blunder
Everyone makes mistakes, right?
No one is perfect. I certainly am not. I once made a significant blunder in my writing.
It happened with one of my early novels. The story took place in ancient times in Central Asia in a place once known as Bactria. The story involves a journey taken by a local leader. Back then in Bactria there were three modes of travel; by foot, by horse and by bactrian camel. This ancient land is where bactrian camels got their names from.
So I simply could not write a story about a journey in ancient Bactria without involving bactrian camels in the story. My blunder occurred in only one sentence of the book. In that sentence I referred to a bactrian camel as a dromedary. At the time I thought the term dromedary was used in reference to all camels so I did not catch the blunder while editing the novel.
But I was wrong. It was not until after the book was published that I learned that the term dromedary only applies to Arabian one-humped camels, not to Bactrian two-humped camels.
I could have unpublished the book, changed that one word, then republish the book. But I didn’t. I left the blunder in.
I remembered reading about Amish women — or were they Quakers? — who make beautiful quilts. In making those wonderful quilts the women…
