Children aren’t goats

A Page One skybox that referred to paying for “kids’ college” drew an admonition from our editor in chief. “I have previously decreed that we should never use the word ‘Kids’ in headlines, unless we are referring to baby goats,” said Gerry Baker.

The law on ‘ass’

The sentence in a March 7 article about a besieged law firm jumped out at us: “We kicked ass!” an employee, who wasn’t named in the indictment, wrote….

There was a time when the Journal might have scrubbed the language with a long dash: “We kicked a—!” What has changed? Standards Editor Neal Lipschutz says it is a matter of slightly redrawing the line between being classy and being Victorian.

Rulings & reminders

● Digitization is the word for putting data into digital form, rather than “digitalization.”
● Slideshow, one word, is officially the style now.
● Singer Kesha has dropped the dollar sign in her name. This happened just after the WSJ stylebook had agreed to use the gimmick.
● Use Icann, not uppercase ICANN, for the Internet body.
● Screengrab is one word, not two, but as the stylebook notes, it’s jargon that usually can be replaced. Read More »

Presidential tweet alert

The @barackobama Twitter account isn’t controlled directly by President Obama or the White House, which makes it different from the accounts of other politicians—and means we should be extra cautious when citing it.

Rulings & reminders

● We now spell bitcoin lowercase, all the time, for the electronic cash system, its network or the virtual currency itself. The plural is bitcoins.
● We’re going with lower Manhattan, as AP does, rather than uppercase Lower Manhattan.
● One-word style rulings: taxman, launchpad (over either launch pad or launching pad).
● We’ll sing along with Ke$ha and the stylized dollar-sign gimmick in her name. (UPDATE: On March 7, the singer dropped the dollar sign, and is Kesha to all.)
● Blond-brick, not blonde-brick, for the trendy housing-color scheme. Blonde, with an “e,” is used only as the noun for women with blond hair, as well as for blonde ale. Read More »

Gawking at our gantlet

This headline caused a ruckus: “At Amazon, Gantlet for New Hires.” The reader howling began immediately. “It’s GAUNTLET ! Not GANTLET ! WSJ” was a typical comment. Other readers defended us.

We stood by our spelling.

One Scotch, one whisky, one ruling

Scotch whisky aficionados have long complained about our edict that the words, when separate, are to be rendered as scotch (lowercase) and whiskey (with an e). We’ve decided that Scotch should retain its uppercase S in all references, and references to the Scotch, Canadian or Japanese varieties should be spelled whisky. The rest are whiskey.

Rulings & reminders

● Janet Yellen is to be chairwoman of the Federal Reserve, in our style.
● Prekindergarten, not pre-kindergarten with a hyphen, is the way we spell it. But it is pre-K on second references.
● Fiat SpA and Chrysler Group LLC are now Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV.
● Argentine, rather than Argentinian, is our preferred noun and adjective. We prefer Argentine peso.
● Junk bond no longer needs quotes around the term.
● Briticism alert: We’ll never be royals…. In the WSJ, we don’t use “sacked” for fired, or “in hospital.” Read More »

Our brain hurts

A Page One skybox promo for a terrific article about brain wiring drew several readers’ complaints. Not because of the subject, but the wording of the skybox: “Women’s Brains Really Are Different.”

Several readers found it sexist. One woman asked: “Was this a temporary lapse in the editorial temporal lobe?”

Rulings & reminders

● Rapper/businessman Jay Z dropped the hyphen some time ago, but we still incorrectly put it in sometimes. (It would be no shock if he changed again.)
● As of Jan. 1, aerospace and defense company EADS becomes Airbus Group NV.
● Takeaway, no hyphen, is now our style as a noun for both the sports term and the popular phrase – popular to the point of fast becoming a cliché – for “key points to digest from the situation.”
● Blu: We are uppercasing the e-cigarette Blu, not blu, following our style that generally doesn’t allow for all-lowercase names (since it often looks like a mistake).
● We now use numerals for both temperatures (6 degrees) and TV series seasons (season 2). Read More »

Lionsgate vs. Lions Gate (or: The Hunger for WSJ Style Games)

The film-studio company behind “The Hunger Games” is Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. Yet, when you go to the movies, you see Lionsgate on the big screen, one word. In a change to earlier policy that attempted to use both spellings, we are now sticking with Lions Gate in all uses.

Social awareness

We’ve made terrific progress in making social sharing a priority in our headline writing. Here are tips to get more mileage out of headlines that appear on services like Facebook or Twitter.

Rulings & reminders

● The parent of the New York Stock Exchange, supplanting NYSE Euronext, is now IntercontinentalExchange Group Inc. (including “Group”).
● Holiday cliché alert: We allow one ’Tis the season turn of phrase per year, and we have already hit the quota.
● Macaroon vs. macaron. Lots of people mix these up, and we got it wrong in a photo caption. A macaroon is a chewy cookie often made with coconut, sometimes with a cherry on top. A macaron is a colorful pastry that looks like a little sandwich.
● Sarah Bloom Raskin, the nominee to the No. 2 post at the Treasury Department, is Ms. Bloom Raskin on second reference. Read More »

Capitol offense?

The day that Page One ran a headline “Capital Digs In for Long Haul,” we received letters with subject headings including “Misspelled headline” and “Shame on you.” Several readers, some citing their grammar-school teachers, thought we should have spelled it Capitol.

We’re not ashamed. Our editors carefully considered that headline, and chose capital, meaning the city that is the seat of government.

‘Saw’ VIII: The writing horror

Mr. Obama saw his job approval fall to 42% … Mr. Bloomberg, who recently saw his push to ban the sale of large sodas blocked in court … About two-thirds of the 250 largest cities saw their unfunded pension liabilities grow …

“This use of ‘see’ and ‘saw’ as a kind of empty-calorie transitive has infected our writing,” says Business Editor Dennis Berman.

Rulings & reminders

● Mrs. Sebelius on second reference for the Health and Human Services secretary with the website headaches, not Ms. (we go by the person’s preference).
● Speaking of which, HealthCare.gov for the website in question.
● close-up takes a hyphen (are you ready for your close-up?).
● Abbreviation of West Virginia is W.Va., not W.V.
● The phrase stamping ground is preferred by Webster’s, and us, over stomping ground.
● Please keep the “on” before the day of the week in sentences such as The statement ran in Hearst Newspapers Thursday. (Otherwise, sounds like a new weekly publication.)
● The capping we will use is Retina display for Apple’s liquid-crystal displays. Read More »

Stimulating argument

Why is it our preference to refer to the Federal Reserve’s bond-buying programs? Because that is the closest, most understandable way to describe what the Fed is actually doing these days. It is buying bonds. Within an article, we can sometimes refer if necessary to the jargon of “quantitative easing, or QE.” But the word stimulus can be used in some phrases, such as the Fed’s stimulus attempts, since the bond buying is indeed an attempt to stimulate.

Rulings & reminders

● Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is our style – Sergei not Sergey.
● Recent hyphen hiccups: $85 billion shouldn’t be hyphenated. African-American is. (And we missed the one in Scooby-Doo.)
● Janet Yellen would be chairwoman of the Fed, by her preference. (And it’s Mrs. Clinton and Mrs. Pelosi.)
● Brinkmanship is the Webster’s preferred spelling for the suddenly popular word, in light of what has been going on in D.C., not brinksmanship.
● Hurricane and typhoon are uppercase when part of the name of one – Hurricane Gerry – but we’re going lowercase on mere storms (tropical storm Matt, superstorm Alex).
● We’ll go along with anti-euro, for now, since antieuro is a tough read.

A word on ‘live quotes’ online

WSJ.com’s live stock quotes – those colorful little “chicklets” with the stock quote that appear online next to a company name – give readers relevant and integrated real-time market data in the article. In some articles, however, a live quote isn’t necessary or even appropriate. Read More »

Spelling bait

“We’re all waiting with baited breath,” we quoted a man as saying, “doing our rain dances.”
Aah, a common error bit us again, like a shark. The phrase is bated breath.

Goofs on Google

Although we may correct our errors quickly on the Web, our mistakes have longer lives on Google Search and Google News – and readers notice.

Massive overuse

We still overuse the word “massive,” to the point of ruining what should be a powerful word, used sparingly.

(Funny story: In our past life as obituary writer/intern during high school, the first thing we were warned to avoid is the phrase “a massive Christian burial” in obits. Novice reporters would put it in their copy, mishearing the funeral-home contact saying “a Mass of Christian Burial” on the phone.) Read More »

Another iconic reminder

Paul Martin points out that an early editor of his, decades ago, had banned the word famous, on the ground that fame was self-evident for anyone or anything truly famous.

We feel the same way about iconic, which continues to appear in a Journal article a day, on average.

S&P 500, naked

Roll over, markets editors of the past, and tell your reporters the news: Yes, we’ve finally decided that S&P 500 is acceptable on first reference for the iconic — whoops, longtime — index.

Rulings & reminders

● Sprint Corp. is the new name for what had been Sprint Nextel Corp. It is majority-owned by SoftBank Corp. but still trades on the NYSE.

● Buyout shop Silver Lake Partners has dropped the Partners from its parent name. Just: Silver Lake.

● Please keep the “on” before a day of the week if it avoids creating odd-looking new names, such as a recent caption that ended with the phrase: the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday. Read More »

One last time

The possible ambiguity in using the word last as in last April (when we actually mean April of last year) leads us to a reminder about the stylebook’s admonition in the entry for last.

To prevent ambiguity, the word last should be avoided in references to earlier days in the current week or earlier months or seasons in the current year.

Rulings & reminders

● Publishing operations of the former News Corp., including Dow Jones & Co. and The Wall Street Journal, now are under the umbrella of News Corp  – still two words but with no period after Corp, except at the end of a sentence, of course.  

● Iran’s new president is Hasan Rouhani. This is a change from what had been our transliteration, Hassan Rohani.

● The device for analyzing blood alcohol content is the Breathalyzer, uppercase.

● The movie “Monsters, Inc.” takes the comma before the Inc.

Our last time

With this issue of Style & Substance, midway into my 27^th year as the founding editor, I will be yielding the reins. As part of my 53-year association with The Wall Street Journal, it has been a good run, indeed. Thanks to all of you, staffers and outside readers of the blog, for your many contributions and critiques to help uphold the highest standards for English usage in the Journal. -30- Paul Martin Read More »