Delta's near H8 crime

A confirmation code on an airline ticket usually doesn't raise an eyebrow, let alone ire. But when one man's code read "H8GAYS," he took his complaint to Delta, which apologized and promises to never do it again. One of the reasons the guy was so upset is that he works in IT and knows that companies can write code to avoid strings of letters and numbers that read as inappropriate words. H8 is a match-up that shouldn't appear, especially in the age of texting, where "hate" is often portrayed as H8. Inflamatory stuff, when followed by GAYS. Christopher Elliott, who write the Travel Troubleshooter column that appears in Star Tribune Travel, explores the issue in the Washington Post.