What do you think of when you hear the word “style”?
Perhaps you think of fashionable clothing: “She dresses with style.” Or the way a pitcher throws a baseball: “He pitches with a side-arm style.” Or the design of something: “The house was built in the classical style.”
Or you may think of a literary style. “Many writers have tried without success to imitate Hemingway’s style of writing.”
Style can also mean a set of rules on spelling, punctuation, capitalization, abbreviation and the like. Newspapers, magazines, and book publishers all have fixed style sheets or manuals that they follow rigorously. Many large firms also have well-defined style guidelines that they ask all employees who write on behalf of the company to follow. Unfortunately, most smaller businesses do not follow style guidelines, and the result often makes them look unprofessional.
Why is a specific style needed?
In English, we often have more than one correct way to write things. For instance, how do you write the date? You may write it in the military style: 29 Sept. 11. Or you may write it: September 29, 2011. Or: September 29th, 2002. Or: September the seventh, 2011. Or: the twenty-ninth of September in 2011. Or: Sept. 29, 2011. Or: 9/29/2011. You can probably think of other variations. Are any of these forms incorrect? Not really. In America, the custom is to write dates in cardinal rather than ordinal numbers, but many people use the ordinals and some forms are acceptable, the Fourth of July, for instance.
The same is true for writing addresses. You can write: 321 North Main Street, or 321 North Main St., or 321 N. Main St. Again, they are all correct.
Numbers present a particularly difficult problem. Do you spell them out or use the numerals: five, six, twenty-one, thirty-five, six million; 5, 6, 21, 35, 6,000,000 (or 6 million)? Even the people who devise style rules have trouble with a comprehensive and logical rule on numbers. The Associated Press and most American newspapers spell out one through nine and use numerals for 10 and above. But they are many exceptions to that rule.
Abbreviations and acronyms also are difficult. We live in a world of verbal alphabet soup. Some abbreviations and acronyms are commonly accepted and understood by just about everybody: Dr., Mr. Mrs., Rev., NASA, OAS, CIA, FBI, just to name a few. But where do you draw the line? For many years, AP required the spelled out name first followed by the acronym or abbreviation in parenthesis, e.g., Organization of American States (OAS). Many publications and writers still use that form, but AP a few years ago decided that introducing the acronym parenthetically was not necessary. “Do not follow an organization’s full name woith an abbreviation or acronym in parentheses or set off by dashes. If an abbreviation or acronym would not be clear on second reference without this arrangement, do not use it,” the AP Stylebook says.
Many words have more than one acceptable spelling: theater or theatre, for instance. The latter, in this case, is generally considered the British spelling, but many American theaters use it in their names: the Tennessee Theatre, for example. It’s acceptable to use a British or other spelling if that is a part of an organization’s name, but otherwise we should stick to American spelling.
These questions, and dozens more just like them, may seem inconsequential. But the ability to follow a prescribed style is very important in writing of any kind, from academic papers to news stories.
I’ll be writing more on this subject.
Edgar Miller