The AP Proves Itself The Silly

Seriously, AP, what the hell?

Oh, bloody hell. 

Curmie had just gotten a little momentum on a piece on the craziness emanating from the apparently not-so-great state of North Dakota (hopefully forthcoming) when he encountered this little gem. This post may be shorter than most, but it takes priority. 

The fun folks at the Associated Press, long-time progenitors of the world’s worst style sheet, have outdone themselves. The AP Stylebook Twitter account posted this yesterday: “We recommend avoiding general and often dehumanizing ‘the’ labels such as the poor, the mentally ill, the French, the college-educated. Instead, use wording such as people with mental illnesses. And use these descriptions only when clearly relevant.” 

It’s worth noting that they appear to have taken the post down after being humiliated by… well… virtually everyone, but there are enough screenshots out there (here, for example), and enough comments by other than the usual suspects to make it pretty clear that the tweet really did exist, and really was that perfect storm of condescension, Woke self-importance, and, let’s face it, bad grammar. 

The reason not to use those phrases, assuming there are such reasons, is that in all cases we’re dealing with nominalized adjectives, which are by their nature a little problematic in formal English. (Is this where Curmie shows off and mentions that such usage is perfectly acceptable in some other languages?) Using articles with adjectives can certainly be regarded as less than ideal grammar, although the AP does manifest all the attributes of the silly. (See what I did there?) 

But it’s also true that many such adjectival noun-wannabees have been accepted into common parlance, although Curmie has never seen “the college-educated” thus employed. “The poor,” “the mentally ill,” and “the French,” however, fail to send shivers up the spine. 

All those expressions probably ought to be in quotation marks (as Curmie has done), too, but one could argue that this would add unnecessary clutter, so we’ll let that one go. 

The problem with the tweet, however, extends past the ironic incompetence demonstrated by whoever posted it. The proposal is stupid on its face, which ought to be (and appears to have been) enough to generate the wrong kind of publicity, but it’s the tired and rather flaccid invocation of “dehumanizing” that really caught the public’s attention. Paul Graham’s tweet that “The AP Stylebook has just checked itself out of the relevance hotel” is more succinct than most, but can be taken as indicative. Curmie kinda likes Ben Collins’s (assuming he got there first) “people experiencing Frenchness,” too. 

Nicholas Fondacaro’s tweet—(“Should we stop referring to ‘the’ AP Stylebook and refer to “a stylebook experiencing stupidity?”)—was also pretty good. Still, the prize for the first round goes to the French Embassy, which now claims the title of the “Embassy of Frenchness in the US.” 

The AP, not content with the initial embarrassment, apparently pulled the tweet with an apology, since “The use of ‘the French’ in this tweet by @AP was inappropriate and has caused unintended offense. An updated tweet is upcoming.” Unintended offense? Uh, no. Here’s Paul Graham again: “You wish it was offense. Actually people were laughing at you.” 

And he’s right, of course (except for omitting that comma). It would be difficult to see the offensiveness of the term “the French” to describe people who called themselves “les Français,” which translates as… [checks notes] “the French.” 

I mean, ouch. The AP would have us believe they’re legitimate protectors of written communication, and they come off looking like utter buffoons. True, they’re not going to show up on our doorsteps with battering rams because we made reference to “the poor.” They (apparently) seek to control not how all of us express ourselves, but only how adherents to their Cult of Enlightened Journalists do so. 

But there was a time, many, many, moons ago, when the AP Stylesheet could at least be taken seriously. Back when Curmie was advising a college newspaper (Curmie shudders to realize that was over four decades ago), it was an indispensable tool, not because it was necessarily “right,” but because it provided a means of achieving consistency. We could, and did, ignore its guidelines, but we did so by establishing our own specific standards, which we attempted to apply across the board. 

But the AP, like so many other once-respected institutions, has lost its damned mind. Basing a stylesheet on the most paranoid delusions of a tiny segment of the population is just nuts. Speaking as a member of “the college educated,” Curmie is unable to suppress a chortle at AP’s ineptitude in… wait for it… the use of language.