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Updated AP Stylebook Includes 200 New Entries

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The Associated Press

Published: June 26, 2008

NEW YORK - The Associated Press on Thursday released the 2008 edition of its Stylebook, an A-to-Z update that reflects one of the most comprehensive revisions in its 55-year history, with more than 200 new entries ranging from iPhone to WMD.

The new edition also drops dozens of outdated entries, including Victrola and malarkey, and terms that had come to be considered offensive or sexist.

The subscription-only online version of the Stylebook includes 460 new entries, including a style guide for food and recipe terms. The online Stylebook is updated throughout the year.

Among the new entries in both the print and online editions is a raft of new technology terms - podcast, text messaging, social networking, Wikipedia and high-definition, to name a few.

Other changes include medical terms that have worked their way into public discourse in recent years: MRI, MRSA, post-traumatic stress disorder, body mass index and bird flu, among others.

The new Stylebook adds 9/11 as an acceptable reference to the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

The AP Stylebook was first produced in 1953 as a stapled-together collection of rules totaling 62 pages designed to bring consistency to AP stories produced by a worldwide staff for newspapers with their own differing styles.

Today's version runs more than 300 pages and includes separate sections for sports and business, with new primers on how to cover bankruptcy proceedings and interpret corporate proxy statements.

Besides being at hand in newsrooms nationwide, the Stylebook is used in offices as a guide for writing and is a required textbook at journalism schools around the country.

Significant revisions in the 2008 edition include changes in acceptable ways to identify certain groups of people. For instance, the new Stylebook lists both black and African-American as acceptable, where previous versions said black was preferred.

"Mentally retarded" is no longer an acceptable term, replaced by "mentally disabled." And coed, once an acceptable way to refer to a female college student, is now allowed only as a way to identify a school that accepts both men and women.

The print Stylebook sells for $11.75 per copy to AP member news organizations and college bookstores and $18.95 retail.

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