We had a paczki spelling crisis today.
It’s not that we don’t have plenty of paczki experts in the newsroom. We have reporters and editors who have written and edited dozens of stories about the famous Polish pastries – a staple of Fat Tuesday.
Maybe the problem was that we spent too much time eating the wonderful homemade paczki made by reporter Ray Kisonas’ mother, distracting us from our spellchecks.
Whatever the cause, we misspelled paczki in a story on Page 1 of today’s Monroe Evening News. For several hours, it also was misspelled on the home page of monroenews.com
Now, personally, I don’t claim to be a paczki expert. I grew up on the West Coast and hadn’t heard of them until I moved to the Midwest a couple decades ago. I’m still not confident I’m pronouncing the word right (For the uninitiated, it’s pronounced “poonch-key” and is a large doughnut-like pastry, often with a fruit filling).
But I’ve lived in the Midwest long enough to know that you don’t misspell paczki, even if you can’t pronounce it right. That’s blasphemy.
All we can do is apologize – and drown our sorrows in another paczki. Thanks, Mrs. Kisonas.
An update: Editorial page editor Tom Chulski, whose wife, Jan, has Polish roots, pointed out this morning that I’ve still got it wrong. Actually, paczki is the plural of the term. When referring to one delectible pastry, it’s a pączek (pronounced: “poonch-chek”).
I think I need more research. I noticed some leftover paczki in the lunchroom.