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I’ve noticed a lot of columnists and reporters using a variation of this style in their shirttails when they note their Twitter address: Contact him @reporter. The @ symbol doesn’t mean “at” in this instance, as it’s a part of the Twitter nomenclature. You need to include the “at” before the name.
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It’s been awhile since I gave an Ask the Editor update. Here are some pointers:
- AP now uses drive-thru instead of drive-through. The hyphen is used when the word is a noun and when it’s an adjective. They made the change last year.
- Sleep-away camp is just so.
- If you start a sentence with the phrase 50-50, spell out both numerals: Fifty-fifty.
- This rule is falling by the wayside these days, but you need to use a comma after hi or hello when addressing someone: Hi, Jim.
- AP Style doesn’t use the serial comma (aka Oxford comma), but they’re flexible on the issue to some degree. As they say, “Commas in a series are for clarity and prevention of ambiguities. In a simple series, a comma before the last item isn't essential for clarity, so AP Style doesn't use a comma in that instance. In series with more complexity, a comma may be needed for clarity, so AP Style allows a comma before the last item in such cases.”
From the latest AP style changes to timely copy editing reminders, check out everything you need to know to make your copy clean.
