"Web site" to "website" in the AP Stylebook

A blast from the past for me – the AP Stylebook changes on something I use all the time but never heard of during a long AP career.

The following popped up on the AP retirees’ newsletter I get every week, and I thought many people might like to know that Web site is out and website is in. Note that there are several links to longer explanations of what goes on in the business of changing AP style. Enjoy.

AP Stylebook Team Announces That 'Web site' Is Changing To 'website'

The AP Stylebook team has announced that "Web site" is changing to "website." In an April 16 note to AP news leaders, Stylebook coordinators Sally Jacobsen, Darrell Christian and Dave Minthorn said the entry change reflects "increasingly common usage." They also announced that plans to change AP style on state abbreviations have been postponed, pending further review. Below, read a Q&A with Minthorn on AP's Facebook page at http://facebook.com/apnews See media mentions in the Washington Post blog "Faster Forward" at http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/2010/04/ap_says_write_website_not_web.html and at http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=101&aid=181664 in Mallory Jean Tenore's Poynter column

Q&A with Dave Minthorn: From Web site to website, mysteries of AP style explained

In a Q&A, AP Deputy Standards Editor David Minthorn offers a behind-the-scenes look at how The Associated Press decides on AP style guidelines -- including last week's big announcement that AP has dropped "Web site" in favor of "website."

Why the change from "Web site" to "website"?

Followers of AP style — editors, writers, students, P.R. professionals, word lovers — have for several years argued that the two-word spelling of "Web site" is out of date. Certainly it's easier to spell website as one word, along with other compounds like webcam and webmaster, adopted previously by the AP Stylebook. Also, the Stylebook's primary reference, Webster's New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition, prefers the one-word spelling.

Still, the Web (the shortened proper name of the World Wide Web) and certain other two-word phrases like Web page, remain capitalized in AP style.

The three AP staffers named as the Stylebook coordinators were colleagues during my 25 years there. Sally Jacobsen and Dave Minthorn were people I worked with fairly closely from time to time in several postings, while Darrell Christian and I knew each other only slightly as he was in New York and I was all over the overseas map. If they’re listening, I wish them all well.

My retirement, at the end of 1995, came just as the Web was launching into the forefront of all our minds and work. Windows 95? Well, I started learning it after I bought my first laptop in Jacksonville while still living on the road and considering where to settle down. With crashes and dailups …

Free public WiFi on Miami Beach?

This has been talked about for quite a while. First it was, then it wasn't. Now it is. At least, that's what it says on the banner of the Miami Beach city governnment Web site. Here's the skinny:

It's LIVE and FREE! Miami Beach WiFi Internet service is finally warming up. Last week, the city began a soft launch by neighborhood. There will still be a 90-day reliability period. Join us for the official "wire-cutting" on Friday, October 30 at 3:00 p.m. in front of Miami Beach City Hall, on the 17 Street side. There will be free giveaways.

My cell phone seemed to be showing a public WiFi net recently as I drove around Miami Beach. Not everywhere. Some places. This bears more investigation. I see the WiFi Web site is still under construction, at least in parts.

UPDATE: Behind the times again. The Herald had a story on this on Oct. 20.  It asserts that Miami Beach is the first city in the country to have this amenity.

Kudos for AT&T support staff

 Some drops in service on my DSL occurred in the past few days. Considerable time was spent talking with/waiting for AT&T support techs, and I feel inspired to give some technical advice – a rare event, as technical is not the first adjective most people would apply to me.

Yesterday’s half-hour didn’t yield perfect progress, though the AT&T lady talked me into paying $5 more a month for a higher-speed DSL with home wireless network thrown in. The wireless part was what had been bothering me, as it simply wasn’t there sometimes to keep my laptop going. And, with hindsight, I also was sensing that the DSL service direct-wired to my desktop computer wasn’t always as hot as it was supposed to be.

So today, upon powerup, when the wireless was down again and the laptop therefore ineffective, I got on the phone again to the support crew, and 45 minutes later had been through the wringer of speed tests and rewiring two computers.

My technical advice is this: If you have AT&T DSL service, don’t accept sluggish speed or wireless networking that clicks on and off. This can be fixed. Call support. (888-321-2375) They will check with the line techs and test connections and speed. They said my circuit was showing some drops, and to fix it they gave my circuit a higher priority at the “Dee-slam.” What’s that? Well, part of the circuit where the signal is sent to me.

Check on Wikipedia for DSLAM and it’s revealed as Digital Subscriber Line Multiplexer.

Here endeth the technical advice for the day.

I’m glad to say that the accents of the AT&T support staff both days indicated that African-American women of the Deep South were fielding my requests, and they were good at their jobs.

How busy are we? How bored are we?

Here’s a fascinating video about the explosion in information technology.



And the antidote from the New Yorker: Are we bored silly in our frenetic lives? The late novelist David Foster Wallace says yes. Is all that information not getting the job done? Warning: This is a long read, especially if you continue in the same issue of the magazine and read an exerpt.