(Credit: LATimes)

The Los Angeles Times’ readers’ representative blogged Oct. 8 that despite readers’ complaints, the Times was correct in its headline “A gay teenager’s daily gantlet.”

Readers wrote in “convinced that the headline…should have read ‘gauntlet,'” readers’ representative Deirdre Edgar explained.

“The Times’ style guide explains the difference between the two words: A ‘gantlet’ is a flogging ordeal, literally or figuratively. A person may run a gantlet. A ‘gauntlet’ is a glove. To throw down the gauntlet means to issue a challenge. To take up the gauntlet means to accept a challenge.”

“We would hate to retire a perfectly fine word — one that in this case was just right for the occasion — but we may have to think twice about using ‘gantlet’ in the future, at least in headlines,” assistant managing Editor Henry Fuhrmann, is quoted as saying to Edgar about the gauntlet/gantlet issue.