Over vs. More than

Beach Bum, I'd suggest hiring some better writers if you're seriously worried about fact errors.

The desk absolutely has to change over to more than and may to might and a whole slew of other shit.

It's our job.

 

Had never heard may vs. might before, Zeke. Fill me in.

 

Since his main concern is to make sure they don't get sued, hiring some new writers may might be the best idea.

 

he might.

 

People use may incorrectly all the time. It implies permission.

So, in an obit, this is OK: "Friends may call from 1:30 to 3 p.m. at the chapel."

Not OK: "This may be the best East Bumfuck team in 20 years." They might. But they don't need your permission.

Drives me crazy.

 

For the arguments against the arguments that readers don't care about "over vs. more than", here's the thing: Look in a dictionary, and one of the definitions for "over" is "more than" (in Webster's dictionary). So for readers -- people who don't live by the AP style guide -- those two words ARE correctly interchangeable when you're talking about quantity, so why would they care which one appears in the paper? I still always change it to "more than", but you also have to take into account that readers won't perceive the use of "over" as being as bad as a typo or a grammatical mistake. The world doesn't run on the AP style guide, after all.

 

But our world does! We have rules in order to have consistency and clarity in what we do. The AP stylebook is our rulebook. We should not deviate from the rules just because the dictionary says we can.

 

i think we should hold ourselves to only getting the facts correct only most the time. readers don't care. really, they don't.

 

Unless you're talking about the Web site. Then we just care about getting up quick. Who cares if it's wrong?

 

not that one guy or captzulu.

 

Sigh. How does one come to equate not stressing out too much about an AP-only style point with not caring about getting facts correct? That's like saying I don't care if I hit a pedestrian because I don't stress if I accidentally stepped on an ant. To me, the "over vs. more than" thing is the equivalent of not using a comma in front of "and" in a series. The AP rule says don't use a comma, while basically all other styles of writing says use one. You want facts? I gave you one in my original post: The use of "over" and "more than" is considered interchangeable by the official reference book that most of the world uses (a dictionary). The rest of the world doesn't operate on journalists' rules. Deal with it. Add the common-sense logic that says no one would mistake what is meant by "over 200 people showed up", and the consequences of missing one instance of "over" is miniscule.

AP has its own style rule about it? No problem. And if you read my original post, I said that I still change "over" to "more than" when AP style applies, but my head doesn't go spinning if I see that I missed one or I see "over 500" in nonjournalists' writing. As long as the meaning is clear, you think readers would stop and ask, "Why did they use 'over' instead of 'more than'?" They're much more likely to ask, "Why don't they use commas in front of 'and'? Isn't that something you learn to do in fifth grade?" And while readers care about factual errors, who has taken a call complaining about the use of "over"?

And since you got me on a roll, let me make this point, too: Yes, the AP style guide is designed to provide clarity, and much of it does help do that, but it is also meant to be applied with some common sense. I've seen some who only edit with the goal of making sure everything fits an AP rule, without considering the intent behind the rule. The end result often ends up being more confusing and difficult to read than if you just bent a minor rule. The end goal of editing is to make a piece more readable and easier to understand, not to make it conform perfectly to the AP styleguide or any other stylebook that's written as a set of general rules that would fit the most common situations but certainly not meant to fit every single specific circumstance. A styleguide is a means to an end, not the end itself.