Oct 16, 2014 03:26 PM EDT By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

Renowned war correspondent Ernie Pyle would have found the typo on his statue at Indiana University - South Bend (IUSB) ironic.

So says Owen V. Johnson, an IU associate professor and an expert on the letters Pyle wrote, in a recent comment on Facebook. Set for an official unveiling on Friday, the left arm of the statue has a press patch that reads "corespondent," not "correspondent."

"Ernie Pyle would have been amused by the misspelling," Johnson wrote. "He never had a sense of self-importance. He probably would have invited Tuck Langland to join him for a drink and then written a humorous column about the whole thing, publicly forgiving Tuck."

According to the Indianapolis Star, the sculpture's creator would rather have viewers focus on the statue as a whole, rather than the one letter left out. The statue will be situated outside IUSB's Media School, which took the School of Journalism and merged it with the school's telecommunications and communication and culture departments.

Harold "Tuck" Langland, the Pyle sculptor and professor emeritus of sculpture at IUSB, told the Star he is ready to roll with the punches because there are so many other details he got right. For example, the Media School published a report last week, just after it was set in place, detailing even the faint cigarette burn marks on Pyle's table.

"It's a minor mistake on an otherwise wonderful piece of art that aptly memorializes Ernie Pyle," Mark Land, associate vice president of public affairs and government relations at IU, told the Star. "It doesn't detract from the meaning of the piece or Pyle's importance to IU."

Pyle reported on World War II and used an intimate style of writing that told whatever his story was from the perspective of a soldier.

Langland said the school could pay to have the patch removed and replaced, or just let "the misspelling become part of the lore of the piece."

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