Wordsmiths Who Suffer Bad Spells

I am embarrassed by letters from several readers pointing out that in a recent column about the income tax I quoted a reader as saying that “as I sit here at my computer, listening to my records, no doubt my tax accountant is pouring through my papers and wondering if he, too, might some day retire and no longer have to worry about income taxes.”

In that context, of course the word wanted is poring .

I take little comfort in the fact that the word occurred in a quotation from a reader’s letter. (In looking back at the letter I find that he indeed had spelled it that way.)

However, I should have corrected it. I never presume to make changes in a reader’s spelling, grammar or syntax as long as it seems characteristic of him, and especially not when he is being critical of someone else’s spelling, grammar or syntax--especially mine. But an error that is simply a careless mistake, and one that might embarrass the author, I usually change.

Among the several readers who pointed out my lapse was S. S. Benjamin of Northridge, who evidently has been watching the paper vigilantly in recent weeks, looking for just such misdemeanors. He has clipped several, which he sends me in a bunch.

“I don’t know if the grammatical errors and misspellings are the result of computer gremlins or carelessness,” he says, “They seem, however, to be self-perpetuating. There are still a lot of people who believe that if they see it in the L.A. Times, the spelling must be correct.

“Writing for publication is such a civilized profession that those who practice it owe it to their readers to take extraordinary care of the most important tool of their trade, language.”

What has Benjamin turned up? Let us consider these peculiar spellings, all, I must confess, from the columns of The Times:

First, a story in which this same word occurs: “Finally, as I was pouring over Bob Horner’s batting average one morning. . . .” (That a colleague makes the same mistake does not excuse me.)

Next, in a story about Frank Sinatra: “She has succeeded in getting the ‘Chairman of the Board’ to tow the line as a husband even though his other wives tried and failed.”

Obviously this writer meant toe the line. This kind of mistake, I suspect, is made by writers who have heard a word used in a cliche, but have misunderstood its meaning, and have spelled, instead, its homonymn.

It is easy enough to imagine that a man bending to his wife’s demands learns to tow a line; something like towing that barge and lifting that bale. (I was tempted there to write bail .)

Next, in a story on how to cook a cake: “Stretch (wet dish towel) taught over cake and invert.” Evidently this writer was never taught how to spell taut .

Next, in a story about surfers: “I remember when we got their , all the kids running around saying, ‘This is my room, this is my room.”’

Next, in a story about the University of California: “The commission . . . is a 15-member panel charged by the Legislature with considering whether major structural or budgetary changes should be made in California’s three- tired system of higher education.” (Three-tired is tired indeed.)

Next, in a sports story: “Sometime you’re emotions just take you away.”

Next, in a news story: “Chief Assistant County Counsel Gerald F. Crump maintained that the specific earnings of public employees are ‘of a personnel nature. . . .” (Does sound like a personnel matter.)

Next, in a caption: “The San Andreas fault line is visable from the air as it runs through the Elkhorn hills near Taft.”

In a story about Chinese landscaping: “At the same time there would be maximum opportunities for a variety of perspectives which could provide allusions of greater size.”

In an ad: “Some things no not the bounds of time.”

About an author: “ . . . his books also have peaked an interest among Navajo youth. . . .” Of a man who had just seen the light: “Suddenly it donned on him. . . .”

But remember. It is possible to make 10,000 mistakes on one page of a newspaper. Think how many times we get it write!