People make mistakes; people admit they’re wrong: A Vital Speeches morality tale

So there’s a typo in the subhead of a speech in the July issue of Vital Speeches. “Delusions” is spelled “deulsions.”

Which sucks.

A reader wrote to us, “Given the topic of the speech [public education] I find it particularly painful to see the glaring typo in the title of the address given by Ms. Bilik. Please reprimand your delisionally adequate copy editors.”

Smarting, I wrote back tersely, “We find it particularly painful too. Thanks for reading; we’ll do better.”

And then we got back a note that (almost) made the typo a good thing:

“I appreciate the access to speeches that you provide, I use your resource at a public library. You’re right, it is a critical part of the democratic process to know what our leaders are saying and how they are saying it. I apologize for the tone of my note, with the anonymity of the internet I turn into a jerk sometimes. Keep up the good work.”

Dear reader, you had me at “appreciate.”

But we will do better, I promise.