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Is the AP Stylebook Archaic?

A manual that insisted on spelling it ‘e-mail’ until months ago? John McWhorter says rules are so arbitrary.

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Mario Tama / Getty Images

Now and then—such as, currently, now—one hears of changes made to The Associated Press Stylebook. Yes, there is someone making sure that journalists are all on the same page, so to speak, on matters of format, punctuation, and assorted aspects of grammatical convention.

Convention is the key word here.

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