At the American Copy Editors Society's annual meeting in Pittsburgh today, updates to and new entries in the 2015 Associated Press Stylebook are being revealed. This news will not affect you at all. But I think it's interesting, so go to hell.


Tons of newspapers, magazines, and websites rely on the 62-year-old AP Stylebook. It's the closest thing the industry has to a nationwide standard of punctuation, grammar, and style choices. (Deadspin copyediting choices are somewhat looser, but when there is disagreement, we usually consult and adopt the AP Stylebook's recommendation, except when we don't want to.) So when they make adjustments to the sports chapter, you'll definitely see subtle changes showing up in your sports copy.

"Significant" changes were promised, and they're starting to trickle out.


Getting rid of "dingers" is a bad move. "Dingers" is an excellent word for home runs. "Jacks" is OK. "Taters" is the best. ("Bombs" can go. Pay attention to how much war terminology is used in sports. It's discomfiting once you start counting.)

Some more modifications:

And a couple of notes from a Poynter report:

Elite 8 and Final 4 are now capitalized. Figure skating jumps, moves and spins are all lower case, "even if named after someone."


Update: New entries, from the email sent out by apstylebook.com today: