Easy to get over

On Friday, my boss rushed out of his office toward my desk asking if I’d heard about the controversial change in the 2014 edition of The Associated Press Stylebook. He warned me that I might need some counseling or moral support.

The journalistic “bible” will adjust its long-standing rule that prefers “more than” instead of “over” when referring to numbers. The upcoming stylebook considers both terms equal, and copyeditors are enraged.

The general tone of #morethan on Twitter is of great disappointment. Replies to the original tweet from @APStylebook get pretty emotional. Many posts talk about losing faith in the AP Stylebook, and some say they’ll stop using the stylebook altogether. Others say they’d rather eat glass. One journalist even warned of a possible uprising.

And while at first a little taken aback by the sudden change that seemed to come from nowhere, I quickly accepted the new rule and will strongly support it. According to AP Stylebook Editor Darrell Christian, the style modification was a result of “over” becoming more commonly used in that sense.

Copyeditors, you’ve been correcting this error for years. And no matter how many times you’ve tried to educate writers on this style, they’ve continued to barrage you with that four-letter word—over and over and over again.

I feel your pain. I’ve been in your shoes. I can hear the collective “yesssss” from those writers who persisted to violate the style. But you’re still in the first stages of grief. You’ve eventually accepted and implemented many other style changes in the past. You have to trust the AP. They’re trying to stay current with the language of the time.

Remember, the Webster’s New World College Dictionary, the stylebook’s governing source—and really every other English dictionary since the 1300s—defines “over” in terms of numerical quantities. So it was just a matter of time before the stylebook would acknowledge the end of the “more than” monopoly when discussing greater numerical values. The editors have just made some room for another term. And I hope you’re sitting down, because with this change “under” will be synonymous with “less than.”

So does this mean that The Associated Press Stylebook caves in and evolves based on relentless improper use of its rules? In a way. But that’s how language evolves as well.

But we haven’t lost everything; the stylebook still considers “irregardless” incorrect for now.