style questions

I was just curious as to why there was such a wide range between papers. My guess on this is because the sports section of the stylebook is pretty lame.

 

I think an honest answer is the newspaper's tradition, in some cases handed down caveman-style rather than in writing, and sometimes for reasons long forgotten. And then it becomes a question of whether it's easier to ask new people to learn the newspaper's quirks or ask experienced people to unlearn them, and usually it's going to be the former. I can't say I've worked anywhere that followed AP style to the letter, without exceptions.

 

True. We're successfully overriding "2 for 5" now, inserting the hyphens like it should be.

 

I'm totally going to end up coming back here to write a 500-word screed about this, but I think most newspapers at this point use enough AP copy that it's become a worthless pain in the ass not to follow their style. As much as I prefer "5-for-5" to "5 for 5," I spend way too much time fixing those types of style issues in AP stories these days. That said, the obvious secondary issue is that the AP sports copy desk has gone to crap. I don't know what their workflow is, exactly, but I understand that every writer is required to do a desk shift. Writers are not copy editors and copy editors are not writers. These are unique skill sets. Some possess both, but most don't. I'm not half as good a writer as I am an editor, which is why I mostly stick to editing. But the AP, well, you used to be able to count on them to get the facts right, spell the names right and get their own damn style right. No more.

 

I detest 5-for-5. Why the hyphens? More often than not, writers in a hurry, and these days because of horrid deadlines writers who are writing like it's the 100-meter dash will hit the = instead of - and so it reads "John Smith went 5-for=5 ... " and that's just one more thing a rushed copy editor (if there's even a copy editor) might miss, and it looks bad in print.

John Smith went 5 for 5 and grabbed 8 rebounds in 4 minutes off the bench ...

That is the perfect combination of writing and sports. No hyphens, no unneeded punctuation. Keep it simple.

Elliott Sadler raced for the first time in 3 years and led the first 7 laps before his engine fell onto the track and caused a 4-car wreck.

Numbers. Numbers. Numbers.

 

There's a wide range between papers, because come papaers ignore AP style, which is designed to avoid questions like this.

 

Never mind the style. Coach should be fired for not playing that Smith guy more than four minutes.

 

That's a damn good point. At some point, you're weighing how much trouble the changes are against how badly you want to establish your style.

But here's another thing where we decided it's worth getting everybody on board with. It's not really style, but AP insisting on inserting its "AP Pro32" rankings into all NFL stories. We won't stand for them pushing it on us. Slice 'em every time.

 

Oh, I agree entirely. That's just bogus, and I hope they've heard massive waves of protest over it. I think our NFL editor filed one formally.

 

I'm agreeing. Not that the Sacramento Bee is the sports style Bible or anything, but in the good ol' days, we'd use numerals for the yard line - Manning was stopped at the 5-yard line - and AP-style spell for under 10 otherwise: On third and four ... Peterson ran seven yards for a first down, etc.

Regarding hyphens Xans, it's the old modifier rule: Jeter went 5 for 5 (I agree; what's the big whoop with hyphen usage?). ... Or, Jeter lifted his average to a lofty .327 following a 5-for-5 day.

 

If I were creating my own style guide, for a product that didn't rely at all on the Associated Press for content, I would stress consistency and do away with exceptions to rules as much as possible. That means things like:

• All numbers are digits. Songbird's right; sports are about numbers. Digits pop more than written words, and even the most stylistically challenged writers could remember never to spell out a number. But if my product were more along the lines of Grantland or The Classical, a feature-based sports publication, I would go the opposite route: Numbers are always spelled out. For publications like those, the words should carry the pieces. Removing numerals would allow the numbers to blend in more seamlessly and keep the emphasis on the words.
• No titles will be capitalized. We're not that impressed, even by president Barack Obama or queen Elizabeth II. It seems like a nightly debate as to whether some newfangled title we run into should be capitalized before a name. It's "Cubs President Theo Epstein," but it used to be "Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein." End the debates.
• In all cases, strip titles down to the point where you're providing enough information without causing your reader to stop and take a breath. This is a policy that should apply to all journalism. We love giving irrelevant information to readers. "Vice president of football operations" can be shortened to "vice president" or even "team executive" in most cases. Different franchises and athletics departments will use the same title in different roles. The role is the important part. The obvious exception is a story about a hiring.
• We will hyphenate 5-for-5 because it's a unit. The hyphens connect words (in this case, two of the words are represented by digits) that wouldn't otherwise make sense. It's different than "5 of 5" because that always requires a noun that is only modifying the second number: "He made 5 of 5 free throws," but, "He shot 5-for-5 from the free-throw line."
• Spell out state names. Is it really that big a deal? I think we'd be surprised to find out how many readers don't know — or would at least have to think about — which state is abbreviated "Mo."
• No fucking dangling modifiers will be tolerated. This is grammar, not style, but it would be in my style guide, written that way, in bold-faced font.

 

Good stuff there, Versatile.

But ...

No hypens, ever. Jeter went 5 for 7 through the first 6 innings as the Yankees scored 8 runs in the 1st, 2nd and 4th innings. Yeah, you'd need hyphens for a 5-for-5 day. Even then, scrap 'em. "Jeter raised his average to .372 after going 5 for 5, his fifth straight 5-hit game.

Spelling out state names? Yes! As a reader there is something ... satisfying ... about reading "We drove from Bennington, Vermont, west to east through the mountains, then crossed the bridge into Claremont, New Hampshire.

I can't explain WHY it means so much, but a story feels complete when states are spelled out. I don't want to stop at the periods after N. and after H. and think "New Hampshire." Reading should be seamless.

Titles should be bare bones, too.