Do you remember the word, “Dweeb?” It was a good, solid, not-too pejorative word. I don’t think anyone but me really uses it anymore.
Anyway, I’m back to full-time freelancing. I moonlighted as a full-time employee via a six-month (then extended) contract. I worked in a cubicle, then moved to a nice office with a door. Most people do this the other way, moonlighting as a freelance writer while they work their main job in an office somewhere. I feel a full post is in order, but for now, this is my rechristening of the ArcticLlama freelance writing blog.
Freelance Writers and AP Style
Once upon a time, in January 2008, I became a full-time freelance writer. I’ve been writing professionally much longer than that, of course, but that was when my home office became my main office.
Many of the job postings insisted on an expertise in something called AP Style. I bought my AP Style Guide, or more accurately, The Associated Press Stylebook from the Tattered Cover in downtown Denver. Mine is copyright 2007. It doesn’t have a year on the cover. What it does have, on page 124, is the word Internet. That’s right, Internet, with a capital I. And, for five years now, I’ve been typing, “Internet.”
I never bought an updated stylebook. I’m not entirely sure how often it comes up that I need to write something that isn’t already in mine. When it does happen, I do a Google news search and look for a real newspaper in the results. That is harder to find than you might think, but that’s a post for another day.
The only thing I really care about today is whether the word Internet is still capitalized in the 2012 AP Stylebook, because, I’ve been taking crap from various corners of the internet (see what I did there) for years because of their mandate that Internet be capitalized in AP Style. After training myself to capitalize, it’s a hard habit to break. To this day, I often type it with the capital, and then backspace to switch it back.
I blame you Associated Press.
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I’m back, and it is going to be a lot more interesting in here.
P.S. It also turns out that I don’t need to double space after a period. I’m not sure who to blame for that one, but I’m equally annoyed.
I can shed light on not double spacing after a period. That comes from print newspapers needing to save space. I really don’t see why there would be a need in any other forum other than articles that are actually going to be printed on a real tangible newspaper.