One of the most common issues we run into as editors is capitalization—starting certain words with a capital letter or using capital letters for entire words.
A usage myth that’s more than over
Like witnessing the demolition of a derelict building, there’s something splendid about seeing a false language idol topple. And topple it did when the Associated Press Stylebook announced in March that it’s now okay to use “over” interchangeably with “more than” in combination with a number. Previously, AP style had considered “more than 500 people” correct and “over 500 people” wrong.
The change sparked an outcry among U.S. editors, laced the Twitter feed during the American Copy Editors Society conference in Las Vegas, and even made CBC’s As It Happens here in Canada. The style guide had caved, was the charge. “The insistence that over is not synonymous with more than is drilled into the eager skulls of first-year journalism students everywhere,” lamented Robinson Meyer at the Atlantic—taking, as we shall see, an oddly restricted view of “everywhere.”
If your response to the hullabaloo is “Huh?”—well, that’s pretty much the point.
I’d been editing and teaching for a decade before the “over/more than” issue pinged on my radar. An editor in one of my usage workshops asked if it was a distinction we should make. After wrestling down my astonishment, because the distinction was news to me, as well as guilt, because I must have been listening to Radiohead or camping in the wilds when this usage lesson made the rounds, I did what every instructor will do in such a situation: gulped, said I didn’t know, and embarked on some furious research.
What I found was reassuring and also intriguing. I hadn’t heard of, let alone adhered to, the “over/more than” rule because (1) I’m Canadian and (2) it’s a spurious rule. But don’t take my word for it.
R.W. Burchfield, editor of Fowler’s Modern English Usage (3rd. ed.), writes that the prohibition against “over” with a numeral arose in the late 19th century, mainly in American newspapers. Burchfield mildly notes that in British English (and he might have added Canadian), “over” is used with numerals “without restriction or adverse comment . . .”
Sure, you might say, but he’s British. How about Bryan Garner? In his Modern American Usage (3rd ed.), Garner first notes that “over” and “more than” have been used interchangeably with numbers for over 600 years, then dismisses the distinction as a “baseless crochet.” Then there’s Mignon Fogarty, aka Grammar Girl, also American, who lays out the history of the idiosyncratic preference and reports on how editors received the change at the Las Vegas conference.
The AP Stylebook change is not, as some have railed, another concession to the permissive masses. It’s a belated jettisoning of a usage point that’s at odds with grammar, logic, and the rest of the English-speaking world.
Now, if we all heave together, can we overturn Strunk and White’s myth that it’s wrong to start a sentence with the conjunction “however”?
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[…] Saving the best for last, Frances also included a bonus myth: “It is incorrect to use over to mean more than or in excess of.” This myth was officially busted in March at the American Copy Editors Society’s annual conference, with an announcement from the editors of The Associated Press Stylebook. According to Sharon McInnis (a.k.a. the ProofingQueen®), who attended Frances’ seminar as well as the ACES conference, the announcement was met with a collective gasp from the audience. (Read more from Frances on the busting of this myth on the West Coast Editorial Associates’ blog.) […]