The cost of being right

JUNE CASAGRANDE

This little Business of Language column is usually heavy on the

language and light on the business. So for a change of pace, I’d like

to start off by teaching you the most important phrase in my business

vocabulary: “expense report.”

That’s how I paid for this handy-dandy tome in front of me that

you may have heard of titled “The Chicago Manual of Style.” Those of

you raised on and thus prejudiced in favor of Associated Press style,

please join me in a loud hiss. Those of you who don’t know the

difference should be hissing even more loudly, because though you

don’t know it, we’ve just waded into the likely source of much of

your language confusion.

Case in point, this from the AP style book: “entitled -- Use it to

mean a right to do or have something. Do not use it to mean titled.”

Now chew on this little tidbit. Page 124 of the Chicago style book

contains a sample document with the sentence, “The University of

Chicago Press is pleased to undertake the publication of your

contribution, entitled ... .”

So I turned to the index of this rather voluminous text to look

for information about the difference between “titled” and “entitled.”

Apparently, those Chicago types aren’t particularly interested in the

matter, because I can’t find any such entry.

I have to qualify that with “apparently” because I’m not sure even

how to work this crazy book. The index doesn’t give page numbers.

Instead, this book has a chapter-and-verse kind of thing going on

that I think holds a clue to the authors’ opinions of their own work.

And here’s a delicious little irony: Last week, a copy editor

removed a paragraph from my column because it contained an error. I

had written that whenever you write out a year, for example 1976, you

write it in numerals unless it’s at the beginning of a sentence. In

that case, I incorrectly reported, you spell it out.

Long story short, I flaked.

Here’s the AP rule, which I knew and forgot: “Spell out a numeral

at the beginning of a sentence. If necessary, recast the sentence.

There is one exception -- a numeral that identifies a calendar year .

1976 was a very good year.”

So I was still eating crow over that when I flipped to Chapter 9,

Verse 31 of the Chicago Style scriptures:

“Years are expressed in numerals unless they stand at the

beginning of a sentence . Twenty twenty-one should be an interesting

year.”

Arrgh!

Adding insult to injury, when the copy editor chopped out my

mistake, he also had to chop out some other stuff that didn’t make

sense once the mistake was removed, including the sentence, “But I

digress.” Unfortunately, this sentence helped set up a little joke a

few sentences later in which I repeated a variation on that phrase,

“But I digest.” A lot of people got the reference to food, but three

who e-mailed me and one who phoned just thought I was stupid.

My prejudice against Chicago Style has a lot to do with the fact

that I learned AP Style first. But there are a lot of objective

reasons to hate this book, too. It’s snooty, it’s hard to navigate

and, according to AP style, sometimes it’s just plain wrong.

OK, perhaps that is a little prejudiced. So consider the source

when I tell you that, in business, it’s best to stick with AP style.

At least, that was the authority when I edited press releases for

Business Wire.

Besides, the hot-off-the-presses 15th edition of the Chicago

manual -- all 956 pages of it -- costs close to $60 with sales tax.

Luckily, I didn’t pay a dime because I put it on my (say it with

me, class; that’s right) “expense report.”

* JUNE CASAGRANDE covers Newport Beach and John Wayne Airport. She

may be reached at (949) 574-4232 or by e-mail at june.casagrande

@latimes.com.