Chicago Scores Big from AP Style Changes

Deputized by The Chicago Manual of Style, the Subversive Copy Editor spoke on Tuesday with an executive at the Associated Press (on condition of anonymity) about the recent changes to the AP Stylebook. What follows is a transcript of our meeting.

SCE: Thank you for agreeing to talk with me today, and congratulations on your exciting new style changes. I’m sure it’s a great relief to AP to be able to cut its hyphens budget.

AP: Excuse me?

SCE: You know—now that you aren’t hyphenating “e-mail” and “hand-held” and such, you’re going to need a lot fewer hyphens than previously. In fact, I’m wondering whether budget constraints were the impetus for the style changes.

AP: Well . . .

SCE: Can you tell me your plans for future overages of hyphens at the AP—for instance, how many are already stockpiled, and whether you’ve considered the storage costs involved in keeping them?

AP: Er—stockpiled?

SCE: Isn’t it true that for decades AP representatives have been buying up hyphens on international markets, leaving manuals like CMOS to scrounge for them at inflated prices?

AP: I don’t think—

SCE: And isn’t it true that AP is sitting on vast warehouses now, and by not offloading your surplus, you’re hoping to create a hyphen shortage for competitors?

AP: Well, we don’t actually consider CMOS a competitor.

SCE: Aha, I see. In that case, I suppose you would consider it a favor for the Manual to take a little punctuation off your hands. Not that we don’t have plenty ourselves, you understand. It’s just that as distributors for over fifty publishers, we’re in a position to house them comfortably. That is, if you need to get rid of them.

AP: Thank you. It’s very kind of you. I’ll look into it. I’m sure we have plenty of hyphens for everyone. I’ll see what I can do.

In anticipation of this windfall, Chicago staff is now in meetings to discuss potential changes to the next edition of CMOS, including a complete overhaul of the chapter 7 hyphenation table. “The AP’s hyphenation hoard is of an extent that we frankly never even contemplated, and we take our guardianship of it seriously,” said Anita Samen, managing editor at Chicago. “Just think—this new inventory would enable us to hyphenate prefixes and have stock left over.”

And in an aside guaranteed to send shockwaves through the copyediting community, Samen added, “And who knows—having an endless supply of hyphens, maybe we’ll finally be able to get rid of the en dash!”

Comments

[Editor]

Of course, the only practical use of the en dash is as subtle code to communicate, from one publishing professional to another, the abstract concept, "I am copy editor. Hear me roar." Recognizing the en dash can be like a secret handshake to our club.

[Steve]

I now fully grok the "subversive" part of your title. Excellent, insightful article, too!

[Cpeavey]

Droll, but I wonder how many know the difference between "en" letters and "em" letters.

[Cpeavey]

Of course there are those who have forgotten the importance of an interrogation point and fail to use it effectively :)

[Evolvingenglish.blogspot.com]

Hoarding hyphens remains an excellent strategy. Although AP has rolled out a new hyphen-efficient model (and even back in 2007 the Shorter Oxford Dictionary went with a bunch of hyphen-saving improvements), the computer industry continues to spend hyphens profligately -- for example, using two at a time (!) to represent em-dashes, and using them freely in such places as blog-post URLs. Moreover, demand remains strong in unregulated writing, where ordinary writers continue to hyphenate prefixes and remain fond of hyphens in phrasal verbs like "to sign-up." My broker's analysts continue to recommend a "Strong Buy" for companies in hyphen-related businesses.

[Yashwata]

"Of course there are those who have forgotten the importance of an interrogation point and fail to use it effectively :)"

Is that so!

[Account Deleted]

Pssst ... Planning a raid on CMOS. As an _e-mail_ fan, I covet those hyphens ... and it's only a matter of time before CMOS tosses them out too. Anyone with extra storage space, please join me. I only have a little room under my bed.

[Bonnie_Granat]

When AP comes to its senses and decides to join the civilized world by using the serial comma, please call me.

[Ron Marmarelli]

Since when has AP Style eliminated the hyphen in e-mail? Or am I missing something here?

[Shmuel Ross]

Ron: since this past weekend. See http://www.ap.org/pages/about/pressreleases/pr_031811b.html

[Ron Marmarelli]

Yikes! The changes just keep on coming. Next thing you know AP will change the accepted spelling of "fliers" to "flyers" and "adviser" to "advisor" and accept "presently" as meaning "now."

[Patricia Boyd]

Whoever wrote the comment "phrasal verbs like 'to sign-up,'" thanks for the laugh! "Please clean-up this report, and follow-up with a phone call." Aargh! It's such a waste of perfectly good hyphens. If people who write like this continue to proliferate, we'll be looking under Account Deleted's bed for extra hyphens.

But I do remember how my father, born in 1916, would write the old-fashioned "to-day" and "to-morrow" in his handwritten letters to me, and I wonder if today's "e-mail" will look as quaint as his "to-days" and "to-morrows."