3 "h"s in "Khrushchev"

[Mark A. Mandel]

Dear Mr. Safire:

This isn't your error, but it's on the Times Op-Ed page (Saturday, April
16):

        Happy Birthday, Nikita Khruschev!

By Nina L. Khrushcheva

The name is spelled correctly, with "shch", in the biographical note on the
author and throughout the text, except in the third paragraph where it's
broken across a line as

                Khrus-
        chev

Nina, Nikita's great-granddaughter, knows how to spell the name as well as
anyone and better than most. (The final "a" simply marks the feminine form
and is obligatory in Russian.) The "sch" reflects most Americans'
pronunciation, some editor's ignorance, and some proofreader's carelessness.

-- Mark A. Mandel, Research Administrator
    Information Extraction from the Biomedical Literature
    University of Pennsylvania