Dear editor:

Well, what nicer present could the Boston bureau send along for the first day of editing class than a prestige-press headline reporting that a candidate for statewide office can, um, "still ball"?

Dear Boston Globe: If the layoffs really did allow you to get rid of everybody over 35, would you mind asking the survivors to spend a little more time in the dictionary? The OED dates the naughty definition of "ball" to 1955. Some of your audience appears to remember it, even amid the hyphens.