To Our Readers, 

It is with our sincerest apologies to the people who allegedly found a mistake in the latest print edition that the Clarion distributed around campus on Wednesday evening. 

On the front page, the front-story headline is titled “Pro-Palestine protest continues admist administration efforts.” You can clearly see the “mistake.” 

We are sorry, but we’re also not sorry. 

“Amidst and amid mean the same thing: in the middle of or during. This can apply to spaces (as in I found my keys amidst/amid all of my other stuff) or situations (as in It was hard to concentrate amidst/amid all the chaos),” according to Dictionary.com. 

We feel as if we have invented a new English word that has a metaphorical meaning to the word amidst. Admist starts with the prefix – a,  which means towards or to. Towards means in the direction of, in relation to, which in other terms, means it’s possibly in-between, in the middle or not in a certain place. Mist means vapor rain droplets, so admist therefore means in between or in the middle of raindrops, which is where the metaphorical meaning of amidst comes from. 

Of course, we acknowledge that this mistake was our fault…for not notifying the audience sooner about the creation of the word. But we hope this letter will sufficiently supply your knowledge of the potential Merriam-Webster Word of the Year candidate. 

I’m changing tone now, as I do think our acknowledgment of our mistakes is crucial more than ever right now; even if it’s as small as a spelling error. It would also be reputation-damaging, for a newspaper representing intelligent DU students, to not at least acknowledge the mistakes made in our work. 

We here at the Clarion, work hard to make sure the best standard of journalism is available for the DU student body. Whether that’s through an on-the-scene live stream, periodical Instagram updates, or in-depth articles about the most important news on campus, our staff is committed to producing the best work possible. 

I think it’s important to acknowledge this now, as misinformation has been spreading about the accuracy of the facts about the ongoing encampment protests happening on Carnegie Green and protests across the country. We have had staff dedicating a significant amount of their time usually allocated for week seven and eight responsibilities to the in-depth reporting that has been happening across campus. 

Yes, I understand some might find it strange I am trying to make light out of the situation of a very avoidable mistake. But we thought it would be a waste of our time to release an apology as it would not be as funny and would not direct traffic from a social media post to our website. 

Again we’re sorry about not notifying you sooner about the creation of our word, and we do acknowledge our role of being near-perfect with our spelling, punctuation, editing and reporting. 

Here are the connections answers, now that we have gotten you to visit our website. 

YELLOW- DU Street Names (University, High, Asbury, Evans) 

GREEN – Words Similar to Protest (March, Rally, Picket, Demonstrate) 

BLUE- Things to Celebrate in May (Derby, Taurus, Memorial, Mothers)

PURPLE- Things that Involve Pairs (Skiis, Sunglasses, Gemini, Scissors) 

Sincerely, 

Riley Laub 

Executive Editor, DU Clarion