Editors need to toe the line with tricky words

Editors need to toe the line with tricky words
Some sharp-eyed readers chastise us every week for errors, but this reader was not kidding:
"Hardly finished the paper and already two homophonic errors have appeared. First, another in 'Our View' about the GOP horse race, next-to-last paragraph:
"Q: Just where is McCain 'towing' the party line to? ( it should be toeing, of course! ).
"The other was [in the Utah section] that the top of the bus roof 'sheered' off (did it become semi-transparent, or did it actually get 'sheared' off? ) That's the second time I've seen this ignorant lack of understanding of the simple difference between shear and sheer (the last was calling a shear-wall, at the State Capitol rebuilding, a sheer-wall, 2-3 months ago).
"As I've said to you all many times, this kind of grammatical ignorance makes the whole paper look amateurish, provincial and backwater-like, and grates like hell on the reader - at least on me, anyway. Perhaps Utah folks are merely used to it.
"Pull your socks up, Tribune editors - and get a spell-checker that has homophonic alerts built in. Surely such exists in your world? And drum it into your writers - or send 'em back to English 101!"
As Marlon Brando said in "Teahouse of the August Moon," "Socks up, boss."
Our reader is absolutely correct.
For those of you who sat close to the back f the English class, according to dictionary.com, a homophone is "a word pronounced the same as another but differing in meaning, whether spelled the same way or not, as heir and air."
Or bear and bare. Or band and banned.
A spell-checker will not catch this. Careful editing will.

Funny Face: But this week's complaints ran much further than words that sound alike:
"Wednesday morning, the Tribune carried a front page photo of Sens. Clinton and McCain. The photograph of Sen. Clinton was horrible. It made her look like a crazy person, when in fact, she had just won an astounding victory. The television coverage of her speech showed many great shots of her. Running a terrible photo of her next to a fine photo of McCain not only spurs me to write to you for the first time, but makes me wonder if your editor has something against Sen. Clinton, whether your editors are Republicans, and whether someone is purposefully trying to make her look unpresidential. The contrast between the two candidates appears to be very biased. Hopefully, you can present the candidates on an equal footing in the future."
Or:
"I can't believe the picture of Hillary Clinton that is on the front page. It appears to be the least flattering one that was available. In a time where media depictions are what most people rely on and image is a huge part of the candidate's campaign, it is disgusting to know that the Tribune is so biased against Hillary as to use that picture."
I can assure you, our editors have nothing against Hillary Clinton. Some of them, in the morning planning meeting that also assesses each day's paper, raised the same questions as our readers. I went to the two individuals who chose the photo, News Editor [also copy desk chief] Michael Nakoryakov and Assistant Photo Editor Jeremy Harmon.
Harmon said he thought it was "a good reaction shot." And, she was looking "in the right direction to go with the layout."
Nakoryakov said he liked the vividness of the reaction on Clinton's face. And, when he checked The Associated Press ranking of the best photos of the day, that shot was there.
While I understand both of their explanations, I agree with the readers. I went back to the photo wire and looked; there were photos that better depicted her emotion.
And - this is a big and - the news pages of a newspaper cannot appear to be favoring any political candidate in stories, headlines or photos.
source: http://www.sltrib.com/