{"id":36148,"date":"2025-03-24T13:44:55","date_gmt":"2025-03-24T20:44:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=36148"},"modified":"2025-09-16T11:18:37","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T18:18:37","slug":"writing-in-the-age-of-maga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=36148","title":{"rendered":"Writing in the Age of MAGA"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IMG_3775\"<\/a>When it comes to writing and matters of style (capitalization, titles, abbreviations, punctuation, and so on), the Associated Press Stylebook<\/a><\/strong> is my bible. Mostly.<\/p>\n

The AP Stylebook and I go back a long way. When I wasn’t flying for the Air Force, I was writing for it: fitness reports, medal submissions, memos & letters for the boss to sign, plans, after-action reports. My writing had to comply with Air Force standards and rules, laid out in its own stylebook, Tongue & Quill<\/a><\/strong>. The Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard, and Marine Corps (and now Space Command, I suppose) have their own stylebooks, and there are small differences between each.<\/p>\n

In the mid-1980s, I did back-to-back tours with two joint commands, U.S. Readiness Command and U.S. Special Operations Command, headquartered at MacDill AFB in Tampa, Florida. Both commands were staffed by members of all military branches and worked directly under the Department of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. \u00a0Joint staff officers did (and do) a lot of writing … you might say it was our primary job … and to standardize everyone’s output, the commands issued copies of the AP Stylebook to every member. Our writing was to comply with the AP’s rules, not those of our own services.<\/p>\n

Which is how I come to own a 1984 edition of the AP Stylebook … it’s the one they gave me at MacDill. Since then I’ve picked up two more on my own, a 2009 edition and the one in the photo, the 2022-2024 edition. I love the spiral binding, so handy when you’re typing with both hands and don’t have a third to keep the book open to the page you’re consulting. I love the commonsense alphabetical listing of rules … if you have a question about quotation marks, just go to Q; if you want to know how Korean names work, go to K. Back in the 1980s, I never would have had occasion to write about gender, and apparently reporters then didn’t think it was important either … the 1984 edition doesn’t mention it. Today it’s a hot topic: the 2022-2024 edition has six whole pages on the subject, starting with an entry for gender, sex, and sexual orientation and ending with a section on gender-neutral language (hence the importance of keeping up with new editions).<\/p>\n

You don’t get just rules; you get truth. Here’s just one example, from the 1984 edition:<\/p>\n

gamut, gantlet, gauntlet<\/strong> A gamut<\/em> is a scale of notes or any complete range or extent.
\nA gantlet<\/em> is a flogging ordeal, literally or figuratively.
\nA gauntlet<\/em> is a glove. To throw down the gauntlet<\/em> means to issue a challenge. To take up the gauntlet<\/em> means to accept a challenge.<\/p>\n

These days, even Merriam-Webster has caved to the forces of ignorance on gantlet and gauntlet, saying the words are interchangeable; AP holds the line. There is a difference, damn it.<\/p>\n

I said the AP Stylebook is my bible, but qualified that with “mostly.” It was my bible totally when I was at MacDill, a functionary who obeyed every rule it laid out. But I’m not in uniform now and can disagree on a few points. AP says don’t use serial commas, I do. AP does title case differently than the way I was taught in grade school (all words capitalized except for articles, prepositions, and conjunctions, unless they’re the first or last word of the title). I go my own way with ellipses and em dashes (spaces on either side; AP eliminates those).<\/p>\n

Hey, where’s everybody going? This stuff’s important!<\/p>\n

Oh, right … maybe I should get to why I’m blathering on about the AP Stylebook. The Gulf of Mexico is why. As with gantlet and gauntlet, the Associated Press is also holding the line with Gulf of Mexico<\/a><\/strong>, refusing to go along with the wanna-be king’s decree that it henceforth be called the Gulf of America. Trump is punishing the AP<\/a><\/strong> over its failure to comply, kicking its reporters out of press briefings and not allowing them to fly with the press pool on Air Force One. But you know what? Even if it weren’t for its stand on internationally-recognized geographic names, Trump would still have a beef with the AP. What about those six pages of guidance on gender and identity? What about the AP’s rule to capitalize Black<\/a><\/strong> (but not white<\/a><\/strong>)? Bad, bad AP! Not a team player!<\/p>\n

As far as I know, each military service still has its own rules for writing, rules which vary from branch to branch. What are the joint commands and DoD using as a set of standard rules today? Do the organizations I once worked for still use the AP Stylebook? If they do, they must be keeping it on the QT. What about federal agencies … what set of writing rules do they use? I don’t know of any writing style guides with a right-wing outlook. Chicago Manual of Style, Modern Language Association Handbook, New Oxford Style Manual, Strunk … all would be perceived as enemies by the current administration.<\/p>\n

I don’t want to give you-know-who any ideas, but if he’s looking for a way to keep his Veep J.D. Vance busy, how about appointing him czar of creating a MAGA writing stylebook for the military and federal agencies (what’s left of them)? The new guide wouldn’t just eliminate present guidance on writing about gender and race, it would make mentioning either a felony offense, along with the use of Spanish-derived words and place names, and who knows, maybe include a major relaxation of rules for spelling.<\/p>\n

If it happens … and I won’t be surprised if it does … remember you read it here first.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The AP Stylebook and I go back a long way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,250,10,16,14,21],"tags":[3213,2320,4736],"class_list":["post-36148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-brother","category-culture-wars","category-current-events","category-media","category-military","category-words","tag-ap_stylebook","tag-resist","tag-fuckyourrules"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36148"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36260,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36148\/revisions\/36260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}