All You Create

Ah, the AP Stylebook.

As a slightly OCD writer-editor-proofreader-blogger, I love it. Though some of its rules drive the masses wild — especially when I’m the messenger — I love it still.

The journalist’s bible provides the grammatical and editorial guidelines that allow creativity to flow between, to bounce off of, to knock over said rules as need be. How else could all of those ruffian writers out there prove that they’re outside of the establishment if there were no establishment to rail against? Editors know of these ruffians. And editors and writers often have a love-hate relationship. (OK, hate is a strong word. Sometimes.) Lots of AP haters are out there, though, let me tell you.

I fight the good fight daily and trust that my 2011 AP Stylebook will not steer me wrong — even as it insists on my putting a period at the end of every bulleted sentence or phrase, no matter how brief it may be — crazy.

So what else came out of the last round of changes to the AP Stylebook? Here are a few changes, short and sweet:

One-word changes:

• Cellphone
• Checkout
• Email (only an uppercase “E” if it starts a sentence)
• Filmgoer
• Firsthand
• Geolocation
• Handheld (noun)
• Nonprofit
• Postgame
• Pregame
• Serviceman, servicewoman (but still service member)
  
• Smartphone
• Soundstage
• Tipoff
• Unfollow
• Videotape
  

If you’re a wordsmith at all, you’re probably already aware that the hyphenated “e-mail” fought hard but bit the dust. That one change alone made a gajillion people very, very happy. The others, such as cellphone and postgame — going from two words or hyphenated words to one word — didn’t cause as much of a ruckus. But there they are.

Happy trails!

SAK

Oh, my. This is what I’m talkin’ ’bout — writing and editing information about recipes and food! How’d a girl get so lucky?

The newest incarnation of the AP Stylebook has a section dubbed Food Guidelines. It’s not long at barely two pages, but it’s a great addition to the guide. The majority consists of rules to follow for recipe writers and editors. So I’ll mention a few of these rules now and throw in a summertime (really, anytime) recipe for your eating pleasure:

• Recipes are to start with a title in all caps.
• Follow the title with a start-to-finish timeline (as in how long is it going to take before you can actually eat the thing you’re preparing).
• How many servings your dish makes is next.
• List your ingredients in the order used (makes sense) and spell out all measurements (e.g., teaspoon (not tsp.), cup (not c.)).
• If you have an atypical ingredient, you can add clarification (e.g., ghee (clarified butter).
• Use numerals in all cases (i.e., measurements, times, temperatures) except for two numbers that are next to each other. In that case, spell out the first number and use a numeral for the second number (e.g., two 14.5-ounce cans).
• Write the recipe instructions in short, clear sentences.
• If your recipe calls for an oven, add something like “Heat the oven to 400 F” at the beginning of the recipe unless the recipe takes more than half an hour to complete. If that’s the case, either add that instruction in at an appropriate time or find a shorter recipe!
• Write sentences with equipment or technique at the beginning, followed by the ingredients (e.g., “With the hand mixer on medium, whisk the cake mix, egg and oil together for two minutes”). That seems a bit picky for my liking, but whatever.
• Any nutrition information that you’d like to add to the recipe, such as fat (!), calorie or sodium content, goes at the bottom.

Isn’t that fun? Now, for the really fun part: This recipe is something I created from memory. I had gone to a Kansas City Mexican restaurant that doesn’t exist anymore and tasted the most wonderful, flavorful, sweet guac imaginable. And the following recipe is what I came up with. The “secret” ingredient? Orange juice — it adds a hint of sweetness to this otherwise zesty appetizer. Please keep in mind that people who have sworn up and down that they are not guacamole people have tried this and loved it. They weren’t just being polite, either, so you should give it a whirl. I don’t have any nutritional information, but I do know that it’s a pretty healthy dish with healthy fats. Just as with everything, eat it in moderation — if you can.

9-INGREDIENT GUACAMOLE

Start to finish: 10 minutes

Servings: 3–5

• 3 ripe avocados, seeded and skinned
  
• 1/3 white or red onion, diced
  
• 1 hefty tablespoon minced garlic
  
• 1 handful fresh cilantro, chopped
  
• 1 jalapeño, diced (to taste)
  
• 3 squirts lime juice (bottled or fresh)
  
• 3 tablespoons orange juice
  
• Several shakes Lawry’s seasoned salt
  
• Ground black pepper (to taste)
  

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mash till slightly chunky. If too spicy due to jalapeño, add another avocado. Serve with tortilla chips, as an accompaniment to any Mexican meal or as a topper for grilled white fish, such as tilapia or halibut or orange roughy.

Now that’s a nice-lookin’ recipe.

Hungry for more information about this guac? Check this article out.

Happy trails!

SAK

Short-and-oh-so-sweet headlines take a bit of effort and magic, all in one fell swoop. They also must follow certain rules and, yes, break a rule or two on a rare occasion. This one, though, is a no-brainer.

When you write (or edit or proofread) a headline that contains a colon, the word following the colon must be immediately preceded by a single space, and that word must begin with an uppercase letter. Examples:

• Dog and butterfly: Puppy chase ends in highway tragedy
• The race is on: Presidential hopefuls Bachmann, Romney, Pawlenty hit the road
• Summer recipe tips: Fresh vegetables, home-grown herbs

It doesn’t matter whether or not what comes after the colon is a complete sentence. The point is that the word following the colon must start with a capital letter. I can’t think of a single instance in which this is not the case (which means that you’ll find it and send it to me, yes?).

One note: The automatic formatting that takes place with the template I’ve chosen for this blog does NOT follow this rule, and it does bug me, but some things I let slide. C’est la vie.

Simple does it.

Happy trails!

SAK

Writing headlines can be a tricky business.

The headline is just a short collection of words thrown together that sum up the article, you say? Hmm — well, yes. But as writers of all sorts know, sometimes the hardest thing to write is the thing that mandates the fewest words. Sort of like telling a story versus telling a joke; lots of people can tell a story but can’t tell a joke to save their life. I should know — I’m one of them.

“On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent 80 cents out of your dollar.” —David Ogilvy, advertising executive

The headline draws a reader’s interest in enough to encourage him or her to actually read the article — and who does that nowadays? Exactly.

But this isn’t a lesson on how to write the ideal headline. And I’m definitely not the one to give that speech, anyway. So, what the heck is this entry about? Quotation marks in headlines, but of course! And it’s really quite simple:

In headlines, if you must use quotation marks, use single quotation marks. Cutlines (i.e., captions) follow the same rules as regular body copy.

It began back in the day when typesetters had to manually set type; space was a premium commodity. Today, space is still a premium commodity, but all the new fancy fonts and software programs allow typesetters (or graphic artists or designers, as their title may reflect) are able to fiddle with what little space there is more than their predecessors were able to. Fancy-schmancy double quotation marks are for the article (or story or blog or cutline or what-have-you) — not for the headline.

Here’s an example from The Washington Post:

Iran warns that it will deal ‘fiercely’ with protesters

Makes sense, yes? I do think that the single quotation marks look a bit weird, but I’m getting over it. There are a lot of people out there who don’t like to use quotations in headlines, and there are also people out there who’ve done research that shows that headline quotes boost readership or sales, and quotes in a subhead, rather than a headline, boost readership or sales even more — weird little factoid for you.

Happy trails!

SAK

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it more: It’s all in the details.

While recently writing a press release (er, make that a news release) for a client, I found out that the preferred term for a press conference is not press conference, but rather news conference.

Interesting.

Why news over press?

Because, as my agency’s director of marketing and public relations told me, a press (as in a printing press) is almost never at the conference. People waiting for news are at the conference. Whoever is holding the conference is delivering news. And in deference to electronic and other types of media, the term press is simply too exclusive. To top it all off, the AP Stylebook validates news conference as the preferred term. Thus, it should be news conference.

Makes sense, yes?

Then what about news release vs. press release?

For that, I turned to my AP Stylebook again. Blast it! Nothing — no mention of press releases, nor news releases, that I can find. (If you can, please send it to me.) But I dug a little deeper and discovered on the AP Stylebook website a little gem: It has a page dedicated to past press releases. YES — press releases! It almost leaps off the screen, it’s so clear and unabashedly straightforward: Press Releases heads the page in a lovely sans font. Granted, I would’ve lowercased the “R” in Releases, but the site’s editors didn’t ask me.

Anyway, there it is. News conference and press release. Long live the quirky English language!

Happy trails!

SAK

Back in the day when typesetters actually “set” type and fonts and weights, and back when such design capabilities were not just a quick keystroke away, old-school headlines were written with initial caps on every word — or at least every major word:

• John Doe Bought The Farm, Never Looked Back

That sort of stylized formatting helped readers know for sure that the line of text was, indeed, separate and definitely not equal to whatever followed. It was a way to draw readers in, hopefully to become engaged with whatever followed. And it let readers know that it was the headline simply because every first letter of every (or nearly every) word was uppercase.

In these days of modernity and quick-as-lightning type adjusters, headlines have evolved — so says the AP Stylebook. For some time now, the go-to writer’s guide has mandated initial caps only for the first word in the headline, as well as any proper nouns:

• John Doe bought the farm, never looked back

That’s it.

No more do the tiny articles (e.g., a, an, the) or prepositions (e.g., to, of, for) get themselves pumped up. No more does the size of the initial letters imply greater meaning of phrase. Now, it’s up to the writers to truly provide compelling copy that draws in casual passers-by, sucking them into their world of journalism, advertising and intrigue.

Long live the down-style headline. If nothing else, it’s easier on the eye. It invites readers instead of coercing them. It implies a (slightly) higher level of understanding rather than speaking to the audience as if it’s the teacher reading from a held-up book to first-graders. That alone has to count for something.

Happy trails!

SAK

It’s a crapshoot, I tell you.

I had just started in a new position at a new agency and was excited to start things off right with an updated AP Stylebook. Makes sense, I thought, since my own copy of the veritable writer’s bible was the 2007 version. Staying current with the 2010 version (even though it’s already 2011, thank you very much) seemed like a grand idea, especially since the 2011 version wasn’t going to be published for a few months yet.

The 2010 version, for those with inquiring minds, is the first book put out by the AP folks with website spelled as one word and all lowercase. That, my dear readers, was a monumental advancement. Ask any writer or editor you know (hell, you can even ask an opinionated designer or two — they’ll freely offer their belief system on the now-antiquated two-word Web site); he or she will probably be able to explain in four-part harmony the beneficial or detrimental nuances of using one word or two, depending on his or her preference.

So — back to the crapshoot.

As a writer and editor in my new digs at Armstrong|Shank Advertising, I thought it appropriate to get my hands on the latest AP Stylebook. The office manager said, “Hey! No problem. We’ll order one of those suckers right away.”

Cool!

It arrived lickety-split and I set to work, prepared for whatever odd grammar question could arise.

Then, just a few short days ago, the AP Stylebook folks threw a grammar wrench in my well-laid plans. They decided to cave under the pressure of the masses and allow email to take the place of e-mail.

And that, my friends, is huge. Even bigger news than Web site to website. It’s so huge because, in the history of the English language, no compound noun that starts with a single letter has lost its hyphen. For example:

• A-frame
• G-string
• S-curve
• T-ball
• T-shirt
• U-turn
• X-ray

It seems odd to me that the hyphen isn’t there, too, because for the two people who don’t yet know what electronic mail is, reading the word sans hyphen could theoretically make it sound like ehMAIL. And that, as the rest of us electronic whiz kids know, isn’t how it’s supposed to sound.

Why should e-mail lose its hyphen? My best guess is because the masses, in all their texting and tweeting and e-mailing (er, emailing) glory, decided that it’s just too darn difficult to add the hyphen to a word that gets typed or written on such a frequent basis, and those masses revolted to the point of forcing the hand of the AP Stylebook editors.

So — lazy wins.

And you know what? I’m sort of OK with that. I don’t really think it’s the wisest decision based on correctness, but I’ll be a much happier — and faster — tweeter with this new rule in place.

For the record: Email is correct to start a sentence; email is correct in all other sentence locations. Fun times.

Happy trails!

SAK

So I’m now a tried-and-true 40-something (which, btw, reminds me of “Thirtysomething,” which was one of the best TV shows ever) and, in my entire life and career as a student, teacher, proofreader, editor, copywriter and marketer, I’ve never had to use a particular key on the keyboard — until now.

Why now, you ask? Because, dear readers, I have recently accepted a new position at a way-cool advertising agency in Haysville, Kan. That agency is Armstrong|Shank. And Armstrong|Shank has this quirky little stroke in its name: |.

I’d seen that stroke before at some point in my life. Surely (don’t call me Shirley) I had. At some point, right? But I’d never needed to use it. Again, until recently. So here’s the story.

I was corresponding with the higher-ups at the agency and wanted to use the agency name in an e-mail back to them. But where the heck was that mark? I searched throughout the Symbols field in Microsoft Word. Nope, not there. Perhaps next to the ampersand or plus sign along the top of the keyboard? Not there, either. Sheesh. So I copied and pasted the agency’s name — funny little line and all — from one of their e-mails to me back into an e-mail to send to them. Sneaky, huh?

Then I happened to see that same little sign on some new business cards being produced for work and asked a co-worker how the heck he made that little vertical line. Imagine my surprise/dismay/embarrassment when he showed me where it was — smack-dab on the right side of the keyboard. All I had to do was hold the Shift key and tap the Backward Slash key (granted, that’s another key I don’t use but once in a very blue moon).

So I recounted this story to my husband, and he said,” Well, sure. That’s the pipe.”

And then I mentioned it to a another writer who immediately said, “Yeah, that’s the pipe.”

What? I am the only adult around who’s never heard of this name? Good grief.

I’m guessing that I’m not alone in not knowing. But as with every situation in life, there’s always more to learn, so I’m passing along this little bit of keyboard wisdom to you — just in case you’re in my boat and not in the I-already-knew-that boat.

So — the vertical bar. It’s also widely known as “the pipe” (from Unix origins). It has a variety of applications, most of which are mathematical, computing and related to physics (thus three powerful reasons why I’m not familiar, if you get my drift). Since this is a grammar site rather than a mathematical one, I’m going to leave it at this: The vertical bar is a great tool to divide space or thought in a graphic, visual way. It can also be used as the symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet to represent the place of articulation of dental clicks.

The more I learn ….

Happy trails!

SAK

Yet another recent style change — or change back — from the AP Stylebook folks concerns the abbreviation of microphone. Back in March ‘10, the AP folks put it out there: The abbreviation that used to be mic would henceforth be mike.

No one could hear the announcement over the roar of the crowd.

According to Slate Magazine, the broadcast wing of the AP raised a hullabaloo fierce enough to cause AP to reverse that decision.

Hey, Mike: Is this thing on? (photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/snackerdesigns/4221001947/)

I’m torn. Read the entire article.

Yet another good thing to come out of the <a href=”http://apstylebook.com/”>AP Stylebook</a> folks’ ponderings of the English language is their recent decision to, well, not make a decision.

This particular point revolves around state names in print. Should they be abbreviated when in conjunction with cities? Or should they be spelled out, creating havoc for newspapers and any other organization that deals with skinny columns or persnickety designers?

Read the entire article.