Part of the copyeditor's job (if one is doing a good job, anyway) is to check proper names that are used in the publication. I like to search for these names on the net and take the final say off the company's own Web site and/or the INTA. Today I came across a restaurant that I have never heard of (turns out their only location in my state is more than 1 hr away from me). I searched the name using Yahoo! search, checked the correct spelling, and corrected the spelling in my publication (thus proving why it is always important to look these things up).

The reason I am writing about this is not to talk about checking authors' spelling but to relate what I think is a humorous and curious descriptor in the Yahoo! search result. When I put in Buca di Beppo in Yahoo!, their company site comes up first, with the description beneath:

Buca di Beppo Italian Restaurant
Italian dinner and sanitary bathrooms.

Now, the "Italian dinner" part is obvious but understandable. The "sanitary bathrooms" part is the curious bit. Is it because with a name like "Joe's Basement Italian Restaurant" you want to put the patrons' minds at ease that it's not set up like a moldy, unfinished rec room? I wish they weren't so far away because now I'm really interested in heading in, if only for a rest stop.