Zephyr

Today (Sunday, 1/22) the mighty Mezz ran a big stringer-story on the front of the local section titled “Hot Rods from Hall;” Hall being a tiny rural town in our readership area, and “stringer” meaning the writer was a freelancer, i.e. not a Messenger employee.
Stringers sometimes find their way onto the Messenger staff. One reporter was once a stringer, and I think this writer will be someday.
Hall apparently has an old car-dealer transformed into a shop that builds hot rods. They compete well with anything from southern California.
An editor had the story a few weeks ago, and e-mailed it to me for prior reading. This was after my departure and retirement.
The editor is also a car-guy, but the stringer wasn’t.
The story featured a customized 1939 Zephyr coupe, spelled “Z-E-L-P-Y-R.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “That ain’t right.”
I thereupon showered the editor with a torrent of anxious e-mails.
“Let’s get this right,” I said. “Ford co-opted the ‘Zephyr’ name from the streamliners of the Burlington Railroad. I am positive that’s how it’s spelled.”
I also e-mailed him a web-link to a ‘39 Lincoln Zephyr site.
The stringer also spelled “tranny” T-R-A-N-I. “Not that important,” I said. “But I would spell it “T-R-A-N-N-Y. It’s his call, though.”
The editor changed both spellings to mine.
Years ago our Managing Editor wrote a humor-column mentioning the Pacer was made by General Motors.
“It was not!” I said, but it was already in print.
He got bombarded with e-mails from angry readers demanding a retraction, which he had to do.
“You gotta run these things past ‘car-guy,’” I told him.