Arnold Zwicky's Blog

E-mail from Ellen Kaisse this morning, for the annals of mishearing:

— EK > AZ: I got all bent out of shape this morning when I thought I heard an ad for a prescription drug called Vivaldi. How dare they appropriate the name of a beloved Baroque composer? Further investigation revealed that it is called Lybalvi.

— AZ > EK:  Lovely. With you, I am offended on Vivaldi’s behalf.

But Vivaldi was a sturdy fellow — Wikipedia tells us that he wrote more than 500 concertos (including the four violin concertos  making up The Four Seasons); about 46 operas; and a large body of sacred choral music — so he surely can withstand being confounded with a countermanic medication.

From the lybalvi website:

LYBALVI^® [alanzapine and samidorphan] is used in adults to treat manic or mixed episodes that happen with bipolar 1 disorder, either alone for short-term (acute) or maintenance treatment or in combination with valproate or lithium.

[alanzapine and samidorphan] is used in adults to treat manic or mixed episodes that happen with bipolar 1 disorder, either alone for short-term (acute) or maintenance treatment or in combination with valproate or lithium.

This entry was posted on March 27, 2026 at 1:55 pm and is filed under Errors, Mishearings, Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.