Wednesday, November 24, 2010

AP Style - driving thru some recent changes

Some recent changes in or additions to AP style:

  • drive-thru: AP has adopted the more colloquial spelling "thru." (It's the most common and makes sense to me.)
  • firsthand: One word for adjective or adverb. (Conforms to AP's previous style on secondhand.)
  • handheld (n.) / hand-held (adj.): Now all we have to do is wait for the rants about "handheld" as a noun. You may safely ignore them.
  • cardholder: For those holding credit cards, for instance. But credit card holder. (Credit cardholder, of course, could mean something entirely different.)
  • nonprofit: AP really shouldn't need to have clarified this; I thought its existing language was eminently clear. But there were enough questions about hyphen or not, so it decided to weigh in.
  • bed-and-breakfast: Note the hyphens.
  • problem-solving: So, it's always been clear that "the problem-solving plan" was the correct use as an adjective. But I guess we now also write "he is problem-solving" or "Problem-solving" is fun? I have a better idea - skip the jargon and write "Solving problems is fun."
  • do's and don'ts: Was there really any question on this?
There are a few others, but, hey, you really should buy the stylebook.

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