Korean stamp includes misspelling

Amid global attention to the discovery of the map of the human genome, "genome" was misspelled in English as "genom" on stamps released by the government on Jan. 2 in a series on the Human Genome Project. Genome is a compound of the word gene and the suffix -ome, which means mass.

The stamps in question are those in the ninth entry in the Millennium Series, unveiled by the Information-Communications Ministry on Jan. 2. Others in the series focus on South-North Korean rapprochement and the overcoming of incurable diseases resulting from space travel.

Almost all of the one million commemorative stamps on which "human genom project" is inscribed have been sold. About 30,000 of them were exported to 11 foreign countries through Korean stamp agents.

Lee Ho-Gab gdt@donga.com