THE VALUE OF A WELL-PLACED `B' AND `L'

This is the story of two letters ... not pieces of correspondence, mind you, but consonants, "b" and "l" to be exact.

People in the newspaper business know the importance of a few misplaced or omitted letters. A three-letter word like "not" -- given insufficient attention -- can put you in a world of trouble. If you don't believe it, measure the difference between "guilty" and "not guilty" in a news story.

In this case, the difference is not so dramatic, nor liable to secure you as a libel defendant. It is more a matter of perception, which in some quarters is not small matter. As a son of Las Vegas likes to say, "Image is everything."

The riverboat gambling industry finds Cape Girardeau attractive. The interest is welcome. The industry also finds attractive an abbreviated version of its primary enterprise ... gambling is diluted to gaming, the "b" and "l" lifted and lost.

Companies that have been to this region don't refer to themselves as gambling ventures, but gaming corporations. The industry is not alone in this. In putting together a regulatory body to oversee this fledgling endeavor, Missouri appointed a State Gaming Commission; in Jefferson City, where excess is not an uncommon condition, they also found no room for a spare "b" and "l."

There is nothing sinister about this. In this great land of ours, a dance hall can call itself an aerobics parlor if it chooses, and persons looking for a workout can either two-step or leave disenchanted. That's the beauty of free enterprise. And it's doubtful anyone will board a riverboat casino and be surprised to find a game of craps under way.

Still, Americans know something about games. It's a cultural thing; that's the way we are raised. But the games we became accustomed to in growing up were jacks and hopscotch and HORSE.

While I'm sure there are compulsive types who would wager on the outcome of dodge ball contests, these aren't the sorts of amusements that give rise to on-board betting.

My bet is that gaming, as a business description, is seen as more image-friendly than gambling. Gaming implies sportsmanship, recreation, a vigorous competition and a good time had by all. Gambling, while perfectly legal in a variety of contexts now, elicits images of back-room card games, down-on-their-luck dice throwers and movies where back-lighting accentuates heavy smoke and taut silhouettes.

Never mind that gambling was a fashionable term when Elvis Presley and Ann-Margaret frolicked on Fremont Street in "Viva Las Vegas." It seemed like good clean fun then.

But this the '90s, and gambling no longer blazes the trail of Bugsy Siegel but rather the waterways once explored by Lewis and Clark. Gambling has come from the east and west inward, and it makes good business sense to put the best face possible on it in this new frontier. If that means a fresh, more respectable name, especially with the cosmetic removal of two letters, so be it.

This is done all the time in government. In Missouri, the legislature last year passed the Outstanding Schools Act, a title that rolls off the tongue and settles gently into your consciousness. As laws go, it is beyond palatable ... it is savory.

Given the financial impact of such a measure, however, it could have gone by a different name. For example, the Tax You 'Til You Drop Act. For obvious reasons, sponsors of this legislation went for a more vendible name.

Congress once found it smart to refer to "revenue enhancement," a phrase that didn't have the nasty ring of "tax increase."

We are told there is nothing so American as baseball, hot dogs and apple pie. I like all three for what they are. But the patriotic appeal is lessened if we attach to these items adjectives like "money-grubbing," "preservative-enriched" and "cholesterol-packed." Such descriptions might make you want to eat tofu and go to a soccer game.

At this newspaper, we continue to use the word "gambling" when the topic of riverboat casinos comes up. The Associated Press, which covers these stories on a state and national level, has the same policy. It only makes sense to call something what it is in news stories, as opposed to what seems image-wise to the industry.

The idea of a gambling boat being parked a couple of blocks from my office doesn't bother me. The prospect of such a boat giving local people an opportunity to work certainly doesn't bother me. I'm not much of a gambler myself. And being a bit haphazard in my personal preferences, I am hard-pressed to suggest to others how their time should be spent.

Ultimately, though, image isn't everything. Gambling is defined by Webster as betting "on an uncertain outcome," which seems to be what the casinos proposed for our waterways are about. I have nothing against the word "gaming," nor do I find it deceptive in purpose. Maybe I'm just partial to a well-placed "b" and a well-placed "l."

Ken Newton is editor of the Southeast Missourian.