Random quotes, images, and thoughts from Ed Ireson.
The poor AP. Although I was never a big user of the AP style (I preferred MLA & The Economist Style Guide), it is the most widely used stylebook by journalists. But they are struggling to keep up with new media. They list POS as standing for “parent over shoulder”. Most under-30’s probably use it as Wikipedia defines it, “a euphemism for ‘piece of shit’”.
And while they finally caught on and have removed the space from “web site”, they went and added a space to “smartphone”. Not that Google is king, but given that it wants to correct “smart phone” to remove the space — it’s a good indicator that popular usage is without the space.
This is probably why I was never a fan of the AP Style. It forces writers to not use common sense. One of the other changes was to require the country after certain cities, including Frankfurt and Copenhagen. While there are certain readers who might benefit in knowing that those cities reside in Germany and Denmark, respectively — that is not the case for all publications. I know journalists are often taught to write to a 9th grade level, but how about writing to your audience specifically? A 9th grade level works if you’re writing in Newsweek or USA Today, but less so for The Economist or The New York Times.
