Most newspapers in Canada use Canadian Press style as the base for their style guides, with a few variations.
As mentioned last week, CP (and Associated Press) usually recommends a shorter method of spelling than the traditional British spellings. One reason is shorter spellings mean fewer letters needed, less ink used, and ultimately cheaper papers to produce. It can also be argued more words can then fit into the paper.
Regardless of the origins of these spellings, the emphasis is on papers to adopt similar styles.
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The Western Producer relies heavily on CP style, but has some odd quirks. For example, we use percent instead of per cent, we lower-case more titles (such as agriculture minister Ralph Goodale), and we developed our own “correct spelling” of different agricultural terms not addressed by CP.
This includes terms such as air seeder, canary seed, power take-off, shelter belt or granary. Our main concern usually is: one word or two (e.g. summerfallow)?
We also use metric and the imperial system interchangeably: for example, metric temperatures, distances and weights (tonnes), but we provide acreages to make it easier for our farming readers.
Our news editor Barb Glen carefully guards the words in the paper. Glen insists standardization in newspapers across the country is needed.
Without consistency, there’s a risk of confusion: CP is based on simplicity and the usual way people speak to help make things clearer, Glen said. “It doesn’t mean other words are wrong. They’re just not our style.”
Without clarity, we’d be totally lost, Glen concluded: “If we’re not vigilant, such bastardization of the language will sneak in.”
She said journalists should see their role as keepers of the English language: “Every journalist loves the language, or we wouldn’t have gone into this line of work.”
