Saturday, December 13, 2008

December AP Style Quiz

The following corrections can be found in the A-C entries of the AP Stylebook.

As Jill removed the Bubble Wrap from the CD-ROM disk, she saw two criss-crossed chain saws and a couple trees.  Amidst the trees, there was a Chinese tsar.  She immediately called her manager and told him the art director had run amuck on the artwork for her Books on Tape series. 

Corrections:

"CD-ROM disk" is repetitive.  Use either "CD-ROM" or disk by itself instead. 

The word "couple" cannot stand alone except as a noun.  Otherwise, the word couple must be accompanied with the word "of."

The word "amidst" is archaic and should be replaced with the word "amid."

The word "tsar" should almost always be changed to the word "czar."  The only exception is when referring to the tsar of Russia. 

The word "amuck" needs to be changed to "amok."


Things you might have changed:

"Bubble Wrap" is acceptable because it is trademarked.  

"Books on Tape" is a trademarked name as well.

We hope you enjoyed the first quiz on AP Style.  We plan to continue running this section in the monthly publications of the Ehling Report during the spring semester.