All good journalists should have two well-read blue-and-white books on their desks. The Canadian Press Stylebook and CP Caps and Spelling act as bibles for writers and editors.
Whenever there are questions, the book addresses them: capitalization, court reporting, government titles, libel and contempt, metric, initials, numbers, obituaries, plurals of nouns, possessives, punctuation, quotations, sexism, spelling, story construction, taste, technical terms, titles, trade names, unnamed sources and weather terms.
Valuable lessons are learned each time I flip through my book. In the area of taste, the book tells us “do not focus unnecessarily on age, especially middle and old age.” Also, “Make it toilet or washroom rather than bathroom, comfort station, powder room.” There are many other lessons in this book: such as what to do if you receive a phone call about an unpublicized terrorist act.
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However, the main influence of the CP Style book is the area of spelling. The book gives us correct spelling for words such as color, centre, blond, barbecue, tuque, 7Up and Schwarzenegger (Arnold).
We are also told how to cut down on wordiness: always choose a shorter word and the familiar to the unfamiliar. For example, instead of affluent, rich; alternative, choice; designate, name; in the event of, if; in excess of, over; on the grounds that, because; for the purpose of, to; in short supply, scarce.
Why does the CP book give the spellings it does? According to our editor, a former CP writer, one reason might be that CP relied heavily on American Press copy. It was easier to adopt some American variations of the English language rather than correcting reams of copy.
The Canadian newspapers that relied on and contributed to the Canadian Press news service adopted the same style.
Next week: More on CP Style – and our own style rules.
