It's the Spelling That Counts

While researching a piece on gifts, we came across the following at the Toys Are Good Food blog. It's an inscription in a book given in 1972 from a daughter to her parents. The kicker? It's a book called "Open Marriage: A New Life Style for Couples."

Christmas 1972

Dear Mother and Daddy,

I truly hope that you will find at least a little value out of this book. As an observer to your marriage of 24 years, I can see many of the elements of open marriage in your relationship. However, perhaps there is something here which will help you to understand yourselves beter and also help each one of us as we individularry make the step into our own marriages. I love you both and pray that my own marriage (if there is one for me) will be as good as yours is.
God bless you and your relationship.

Love, Dotty

And about the book's title: Lifestyle, though generally one word today, was sometimes written as two in the 1970s. When it was coined in the late 1800s, it had a hyphen (thanks, OED!). We're feeling charitable about this spelling choice and won't ding the authors -- a married couple, no less -- even if we would never want to swap keys with them.)