Do newspapers editors have style? Hundreds of pages as matter of fact

I got a good kick out of the Daily Camera story about the ?grammar-grounded? Boulder resident who thinks the missing hyphen in Boulder?s new retail project, Twenty Ninth Street, is ?illiterate.?

Actually, when I first heard the name, I thought it should be 29th Street. After all, that?s Associated Press style ? and the stylebook (with 413 pages of grammar and spellings) is the newspaper editor?s Bible (always capitalize).

Readers love to find newspaper mistakes. I sort of thrive on it myself. Just writing this column gives me a chill because I know you?re out there poring (not pouring) over it for a big, fat mistake.

Names particularly give editors fits. Names like Denis Nock (one n in Denis writers screw up endlessly).

Twenty Ninth Street is just the one of many name pains ? not the latest, not the last. Has anyone noticed yet there?s no period in Boulder?s St Julien Hotel & Spa? Check the sign over the front entrance.

You would not believe the time editors spend debating style. We come armed with dictionaries, ?AP Stylebook,? ?Strunk and White,? and my managing editor even reverts to the fading pages of ?Basic Composition,? his English grammar book from the seventh grade. Throw in Google and every other Web site where you can check spellings, and the debates never end.

Just yesterday my co-worker accused me of being ?bullheaded? (looked it up, not hyphenated) after I challenged his use of a singular verb with compound subjects. Wouldn?t you know he was able to find the exception to the rule buried in ?Elements of Style.?

It?s the companies that insist on all-lowercase or all-capitals in their names that really send me off. They think it?s a cool way to get attention. Mix them up on me, like encryptX or bioZhena, and I want to strangle them. I can live with RE/MAX, even PricewaterhouseCoopers but honest, will anyone ever bother to get re|solution right?

I know exactly what Vermilion?s Bob Morehouse and his designers were thinking when they left the hyphen out of Twenty Ninth Street. Look at the logo ? Twenty on one line, Ninth on the next and Street on the last. A hyphen screws up the clean look, right?

At the Business Report (note we lowercase the ?t? although it?s part of our name), we use AP style. But even AP editors can?t make up their collective mind. They regularly announce changes. Just last week we had to stop hyphenating fund-raiser, make it one word. Teen-ager (an old AP style) finally dropped the hypen, a good thing because no one ever got it right anyway.

As the Internet came to life, we really got crazy. Most of these terms ? Web, Internet (we cap them), e-mail (we hyphenate), Wi-Fi hotspot ? weren?t even in the dictionary, much less a stylebook. So that?s when newspapers create their own in-house stylebook ? ours is 12 pages long.

Do you capitalize Pearl Street Mall? How about Denver metro area? Is it Coloradans or Coloradoans? One we had to decide on quickly was 9/11 or Sept. 11?

Nothing gives us fits more than commas and hyphens. The AP rules for commas are nearly three pages, same for hyphens. Right under the story on Twenty Ninth Street, the Camera reported on company earnings. In one paragraph, I read ?first quarter revenue? (no hyphen) and first-quarter sales (hyphenated). Camera editors could slice me up for style mistakes all day long, too.
We try hard to have at least three editors look at every story before it?s published. That?s why we never run any corrections. Ha ha! On larger newspapers, four or five editors get their licks in on each story. I can assure few stories go untouched.

Why? Because style, in so many ways, is simply personal taste. There are exceptions to every rule, and no one can remember them all.

Am I bullheaded to try to keep style consistent? Of course, but I let style debates go up for editorial staff vote. Majority rules.

I?ve told PR people many times I won?t guarantee I will print their company name all lowercase ? even if that?s the way they spell it. It?s too hard to remember, and it just looks goofy.
It?s hard enough to remember that Wal-Mart has a hyphen and Kmart doesn?t.

As a baby boomer (not capped, two words), do you really want your child to grow up and be a newspaper editor? Much better to be a doctor ? but remember, in AP style, only dentists, MDs and osteopaths get Dr. before their name ? not Ph.D.s.

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