[dd74]

Okay, I give: I don't get your gripe. CNN has gone through some trends with their caption writing, by late, which is to add some humor to what would otherwise be a rather boring line.

"Spot trots," aliterates the sound dogs make when they "trot." The words are meant to somewhat "click," as does a dog when moving on concrete or hardwood floors.

"Heels" is an obvious double-entendre. "Heels" or near the heels is where the dog walks, while also obeying its master's command.

Now if the caption read: "Spot trots along at the toe of the president and first lady in November 2003," there'd be some gramatical incongruencies because there are three feet in the photo (GW's two, Laura's one foot). Conversely, "Spot trots along at the "toes" of the president and first lady in November 2003." lacks anything interesting in the language itself - dull caption for a dull photo given those legs and dog could belong to anyone.

If they were to say: "Spot "tows" the line," or something to that effect, the caption would indeed have some spice, but that discounts the sound of "dog" to the caption, which is integral to the reader having "feelings" for the story - (I bet a dog owner/lover wrote this caption and edited the story).

It's not easy writing these things. The hardest daily writing in newspapers are covering a losing athletic team while trying to find new ways of saying "they lost," and weather that hasn't changed in five months, where you're left with sunny skies AGAIN today. These two ongoing scenarios kill a writer's language skills. If at all, they're the ones with the worn out thesaurus.

BTW: CNN saw nothing wrong with the caption. The story's been up since late this morning with the same writing beneath the photo.