LETTERS: TYPOS CLOSELY AKIN TO PAINFUL SPLINTER

To the editor:

I enjoyed R. Joe Sullivan's Friday column about typos, i.e. newsroom gremlins, immensely. I'm a recent transplant in Southeast Missouri from Iowa where I worked in the newsroom of The Des Moines Register.

Before we went through the hell of hells -- pagination with a jury-rigged computer system -- among other jobs like actual writing, I supervised corrections on the final proofs in the composing room. I've got to admit to this day when I notice typos such as the ones you cited, I get a feeling closely akin to running a splinter under my fingernail. My more primitive and honest thoughts are, "Better them than me."

Thank you for a good newspaper which I look forward to opening each morning. For a few weeks I also took the St. Louis newspaper, but the Southeast Missourian covered all subjects from the statehouse to Congress to the county courthouse and has good coverage of local news. So I dropped the St. Louis newspaper.

In order to keep up with my more liberal colleagues in the business, however, I keep my subscription to The Des Moines Register (where, I claim, in the Gannett style of diversity, I was the newsroom's token conservative.)

The next time you pick up your paper and notice one of those errors and your bagel catches in your suddenly dry throat while your heart speeds up and sweat pops out on the palms of your hands, be aware that over here in the village of Burfordville, I am sitting back reading the same thing and thinking, "Thank God I didn't do it."

LINDA BANGER

Burfordville