"Adjust is pending Delete" in X11?

[Michael O'Dell]

In the days of using Sunview, I had the text edit preferences set to
"adjust is pending delete" so if you overtype the selection, or backspaced
on it, it was deleted.  I REALLY like this.  The question is whether there
is an equivalent spell (ideally done via a resource you can stuff into the
server) for the TextEdit widget in X11R4.  I'm using Xmh and am going
crazy having to type ^W to delete the selection before typing in the
correction.