
Tag Archives: Associated Press Stylebook
Style Books Battle

Filed under Commentary, Editing Tips
Recent AP Changes Show Style Is Always in Flux
The Associated Press, which in its 2010 Stylebook went from Web site (two words, capitalized) to website (one word, lower case) while retaining the capital letter for the Web (not a synonym for Internet, by the way) announced more switches in AP Style at the February 2011 Phoenix conference of the American Copy Editors Society. The latest changes include “email” instead of “e-mail,” “cellphone” instead of “cell phone” and “smartphone” instead of “smart phone.” This works fine, of course, until auto-hyphen programs break these words between syllables and insert a hyphen at the end of a line.
Style rule changes can be seen as necessary to keep up with rapidly changing times and conventions–or as a way to make editors keep buying a new AP Stylebook every year.
My advice: Choose your own style rules. Then hire an editor to make sure you stick with them.
Filed under Behind the Words, Commentary, Editing Tips
Don’t Get Hysterical Over Historic or Historical
According to the Associated Press Stylebook, “a historic event is an important occurrence, one that stands out in history. Any occurrence in the past is a historical event.” But should the same rule apply to buildings, neighborhoods or districts? Are these places merely old, or did something significant occur there? The Grammarist website notes, “Buildings, villages, districts and landmarks deemed historically important are often described as historic because they are historically significant in addition to being of or related to history. Societies dedicated to recognizing and preserving these things are called historical societies because they are concerned with history but not momentous in themselves.” So a historical society might be responsible for maintaining a historic site. Got it?
The best and most thorough discussion of proper usage of historic or historical that I’ve found is this one. Its author points out the other wrinkle in this conundrum: Is it correct to put “a” or “an” in front of historic or historical? (Unless your audience is British, there’s little debating “a” is the correct way to go.)
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Filed under Commentary, Editing Tips, Grammar, Writing Tips
Tagged as Associated Press Stylebook, Bellingham, historic or historical, Klondike Museum, Klondike National Historical Park, LaConner, road signs, William Safire