I love the Associated Press Stylebook on a regular day.
My students have called me the “AP Style Nazi,” an offensive title that made me strangely proud.
I smile and shake my head in pity when colleagues come to me and ask for AP Style advice. Bless their hearts. How could they not know?
My heart nearly explodes with pride when I hear students in the newsroom across from my office debating the letter versus the spirit of a stylebook entry.
I love me some word nerdom.
There is something to be said for consistency in word usage, which is why I love the stylebook so much. Readers know what to expect format-wise from one publication to the next.
You can imagine that I get a bit uneasy when the AP changes stylebook entries. We can’t just use fund-raiser for decades and then arbitrarily change it to fundraiser overnight, can we?
But even I have been thrilled with a couple of tech-related stylebook changes the AP has made.
The first was in April 2010 when the AP changed Web site to website. The news service had avoided the change, with officials claiming that the World Wide Web (another entry that still exits) was a proper noun.
The second was earlier this month when, among other changes, the AP changed e-mail (the long-standing entry for electronic mail) to email, acceptable on all references.
The only thing I love more than word nerdery is TRENDY word nerdery! Way to go, AP!
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