It's Colombia, not "Columbia

10/16/03 - To the Cigar,A country of "30 million people" deserves to have its name spelled correctly by the Cigar. In the story published on Oct. 15, your reporter misspelled the name of the South American nation 10 times, and misspelled "Columbian" twice, including in the headline.

Apparently there are no former Spelling Bee champs or students of geography on the editorial staff. Usually I ignore spelling errors in The Cigar, but in this case the story undercuts the visiting speaker's argument, as it affirms the ways in which the United States seems to be unaware of the effects on other nations of our own national agenda.



Nancy Cook

Department of English