All You Create

Happy Friday to all the women out there who have ever visited an OBGYN.

Or would that be Obgyn? OB-GYN? OB/GYN? Or obgyn? or ob-gyn?

Well, according the AP Stylebook, it should be ob-gyn.

I know — not what I was expecting, either. But there it is.

And that, my friends, is it for this entry. Makes you wish your ob-gyn visit were as short as this post, yes?

Happy trails!

SAK

File this one under “Learn something new every day.”

Coffeyville is a manufacturing town located in southeast Kansas. I know at least one person who grew up there. I’ve said the town’s name probably 180 times in my life. I’ve seen it in print. I’ve heard others talk of the burg that’s currently one of the largest fulfillment centers for Amazon.com. And yet I apparently haven’t been spelling it correctly all this time.

Now that I’m working on a print ad that mentions this -ville, I find out (to my dismay, mind you) that my awesome spelling powers are just not that awesome.

It’s Coffeyville. Not — as I so rudely assumed it to be — Coffeeville.

See that ‘y’? Sneaky little sucker took the place of the ‘e‘ that should be there. Although I’d bet Colonel James A. Coffey would be rolling over in his grave if he saw his name botched so. Coffey, by the way, was a Scorpio, the third of 12 children, a businessman and a free-stater.

That’s it for today’s spelling lesson, folks.

Happy trails!

SAK

Short and sweet for your April 1:

Note the placement of the apostrophe — it’s April Fools’ Day and April Fools’. Not April Fool’s Day nor April Fool’s.

Why? Because it’d be a good wager to take that there are more than just one fool on this — or any other — day. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

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

Thinking back to my youth, I fondly remember watching cartoons on Saturday mornings and holding a mug of milk with powdered Nesquik® slightly stirred into it — just enough to leave a big, bubbled glop of thick chocolate in the bottom of the mug, ready to be spooned into my eager mouth once the chocolate milk had been consumed.

Those were the days.

And in between watching “Scooby-Doo,” “The New Zoo Revue,” “The Secrets of Isis,” “Shazam!,” “Pink Panther,” “Rocky and Bullwinkle,” “SuperFriends,” “Land of the Lost,” “Fat Albert” and “Hong Kong Phooey,” I’d learn some stuff.

Huh?

Yep. Thanks to “Schoolhouse Rock” — a fantastic collection of animated, musical, educational short films that would individually play after the cartoon was over — I learned all sorts of things: American history, science, math (egads!), politics and, of course, grammar. One of my favorite “Schoolhouse Rock” films was (and still is, btw) on interjections.

Several of my favorite Saturday-morning cartoons used interjections visually on the screen: “Boris and Natasha” and the classic “Batman” sound effects (Bam! Klonk! Ker-POW!). And one of my favorite interjections was often used in the cartoon (and live-version) “Pink Panther” — aha! As a form of discovery, aha! offers comedic gold for those who can deliver it on target. None was better at delivering that one-liner than Peter Sellers as Jacques Clouseau in the live-action “Pink Panther” films.

Every once in a while, I like to use aha! in my writing. But recently it struck me that perhaps I didn’t know how to spell it correctly. I waffled between the plain, old aha! and the hyphenated a-ha! But which is correct?

According to the online dictionaries Merriam-Webster and Webster’s New World College, the no-hyphen aha! wins. Webster’s New World College does list the hyphenated version as a secondary possibility, but secondary doesn’t cut it in this burg. So my recommendation is to go with the simpler aha! spelling.

A last note: Although neither dictionary lists the word aha with an exclamation point permanently attached to it, I have done so in this post — reason being that aha is almost never used without the exclamation point. I suppose it could be used with a period to imply sarcasm or a dead-pan delivery or a question mark to imply inquisitiveness, but those are rare beasts, indeed. If you know of other punctuation that could work, send the examples my way.

Happy trails!

SAK

So today is Monday, March 14, 2011. This means that yesterday was the day we all changed our clocks to account for daylight saving time. We “sprang forward” since it’s spring, and we’ll “fall back” an hour next autumn.

According to the AP Stylebook folks (and they know their stuff), daylight saving time  occurs “from 2 a.m. on the second Sunday in March through 2 a.m. on the first Sunday in November in areas that do not specifically exempt themselves.”

A few details to remember when writing about daylight saving time:

• Daylight saving time is also known as daylight time.
• Do not use a hyphen.
• Do not use an ending “s” in saving.
• Unless it begins a sentence or is associated with a specific time zone, all letters are lowercase (the exception would be the “D” in daylight).
• Saving is dropped when the concept is used with the name of a time zone (e.g., Mountain Daylight Time, Central Daylight Time).

A little history
George Vernon Hudson, an English entomologist and astronomer who lived in New Zealand, proposed the idea of daylight saving time in order to enjoy the benefits of added daylight in the hours after work. He had initially suggested a two-hour jump. (Can you imagine?)

Who benefits from daylight saving time? In particular, retailers (more time for shopping after work) and outdoor sports (more time spent making points and defending goals). Who suffers from the time shift? Farmers and those with other sun-based jobs, as well as nighttime entertainment.

Me? I’m OK with falling back in the autumn, because hey — I enjoy an extra hour of sleep in the a.m. The whole spring-forward thing really ain’t my bag. But, of course, no one asked me.

So — I hope that you all remembered to set your alarms and actually got up when they went off this morning. Only eight months until we can fall back in time.

Happy trails!

SAK

Ever since I was a kid, my ears have liked to play tricks on me:

• Excuse me while I kiss this guy!
• Dirty deeds and the thunder chief!
• There is a place in time sweet as honey!
• All I can do is just pull some teeth or two!

So my life goes. Songs haven’t been the only things that I’ve mistakenly spoken or written about. A biggie that stands out in my mind is the beige folder that’s in every office in America. Also the beige envelope with the little button that you wind a string around to keep the envelope’s contents from spilling out onto the floor. You know what I’m talking about.

The vanilla folder.

Well, it is sort of vanilla-like in color. And a gazillion other people also call it the vanilla folder, even though that’s not the thing’s name.

That beige folder (and its kissing cousin, the large beige envelope) is called a manila folder.

The manila folder got its name from the original fiber content of the paper — manila hemp — which was derived from the leaves of the abacá (a species of banana that grows in the Philippines). Manila is also the capital of the Philippines, which is a primary abacá producer.

Coincidence? I think not.

So while a folder may remind you of vanilla and be as exciting as imitation vanilla, by any other name — and any other color — that file folder your carrying around is still a manila folder.

Happy trails!

SAK

How, oh, how do I write a post about health care in 2011 without getting into the details of so-called Obamacare? Or, living in Kansas, referring to the ongoing abortion debate? Or, since I work in advertising and my fair city has a couple of health care giants that offer ad agencies lots of fun projects that typically have health care (or as the unfortunate case may be, healthcare) in the headlines and copy?

Such the dilemma. But one I’m willing to push my way through and emerge on the other side unscathed.

You see? Barack knows. He's even helping me out by pointing to it. Thanks, man. (photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dborman2/3932493193/)

Health care, my friends, no matter how you write it — as a noun or adjective, upside down, backward, ghosted or floating in a hot-pink starburst — is two words. Not one word. No hyphen. Just two words.

Health care.

(See? I did it! Kudos to me!)

Happy trails!

SAK

When I don’t have quick inspiration for a new blog entry, I do what any decent writer needing a boost would do: I flip through my AP Stylebook for ideas.

Today, I came across a little snippet of information that had slipped right on by me.

Hey, cows — home's that-a-way! (photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chelseagirlphotos/242492087/)

Did you have any idea that the AP Stylebook folks frown on using the abbreviated ’til in place of until? I surely did not. They do write that the non-apostrophed till is a perfectly acceptable substitution. But not ’til (no sirree, Bob). You write ’til and you’ll look a fool in front of all your cohorts — a fool, I tell you.

I’ve been doing it all wrong for a very long time. Poo. Fool me once ….

So — Until is good. Till is OK, too.

Happy trails!

SAK

Having two little girls running about the house and growing like proverbial weeds means that I see midriffs more often than not. And when I see midriffs, it usually means one of two things:

1. Those kids have the cutest tummies around.
2. Their shirts are too short — time to buy the next size up.

I see their little navels and rub their little stomachs as if they were direct descendants of the Laughing Buddha. And then I holler, “Time for snacks!” and the little munchkins rush to the table and giggle at the sight of navel oranges, already peeled, ready to be inhaled.

Notice I wrote navel. Navel is the correct spelling when you’re referring to oh-so-kissable bellybuttons. And it’s also correct when mentioning a certain kind of orange.

Navel is not, however, correct when bringing up anything about a navy (as in military ships, squadrons, uniforms and the like). If you’re writing about something that has to do with a navy, choose to write naval, with an “a” in the second vowel spot.

How easy is that? Easy-schmeezy, (navel) orange-squeezy.

Happy trails!

SAK