AP Style Updates
Various other AP style updates in recent weeks:
- hard line (n.) but the adjective form is hyphenated: hard-line. Also, hard-liner.
- Capitalize "The" in The Conference Board. (I always find these pretentious, just like The Associated Press and The Ohio State University - you'll find many shops that won't follow it.)
- flu-like is hyphenated. (Not sure why this was an issue; it seems logical. But, whatever.)
- headscarf and headscarves are one word. This is one desks have had to deal with as copy flows in from the Middle East.
Labels: punctuation, style-AP
posted by Doug @ 11:17 AM
6 comments|
6 Comments:
AP has been erratic on flu-like/flulike. A check of my paper's online archive shows about a 2:1 preference for "flulike," mostly in sports copy (i.e., "Bob Smith did not play because of flulike symptoms."). Seems to be an overdue ruling on the AP's part, and in favor of the one that I think is easier to read.
"Erratic" and "AP sports" are basically redundant when it comes to following AP style.
One of the old jokes around the office was "which style is sports using today?"
Hard-line and hard-liner? Really? (Well, I guess this is the same entity that insisted on saying "teen-ager" for years after the hyphen had been dropped by everyone else on the planet.)
Erik:
It does seem a bit odd given that AP uses "policymaker." The difference here may be that there is the adjective.
To me, saying he took a "hardline" stand just doesn't compute quite as well as the hyphenated form. So if you do it there, I can see the argument for hyphenating the noun, for simplicity if nothing else.
More on flulike/flu-like: The solid spelling was consistent with AP's guidance on "like" as a suffix.
But this is from David Minthorn answering an editor's question over at Ask the Editor: "the hyphenated spelling is easier to read and understand."
i really like reading your blog.
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