LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Typos highlighted as grievous

Suzanne Butz

I and many of my fellow Lawrentians were disappointed with the multiple errors that appeared in The Lawrentian on Oct. 5. First, one of the headlines made no sense; it read: “Renovations across campus bring both contemporary look to Lawrence.” It begs the question, “both what?” Second, two of the sentences in the fifth paragraph in “Warch addresses new campus center” were virtually the same. Third, and most grievous, were the errors in the article “Boulevard Theatre and Timothy Troy bring ‘The Woolgatherer’ to Lawrence.” The name of the playwright read “William Mastros Astrosimone”; in the events column, the name read “Mastrosione.” The correct name (from the program of the play) is William Mastrosimone. The name of actress Carrie Van Deest was misspelled as “Van Drest,” and the name of actress Farrah Fawcett was comically mangled as “Fera Faucet.”

I can understand typos and small errors from time to time; we all make mistakes. However, this issue of the Lawrentian is the worst offender that I have seen. Some may think that errors like these are trivial and should be overlooked; in fact, their triviality implies that a respectable newspaper should have been able to correct them easily.

—Suzanne Butz