Should coranavirus be capitalized when writing?

The quick answer is no.

There are numerous "style guides" used by writers, editors, and scientists alike, largely created by people with too much time on their hands to come to any universal agreement. God help us if The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Associated Press could ever agree on punctuation or grammar. Even Buzzfeed has their own style guide. Buzzfeed. Yes, folks, we have entered that confusing moment in human development.

But here is where some of the largest style guides fall on the spelling of coronavirus.

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The Associated Press:

The Associated Press Stylebook (used by numerous journalists worldwide) states, "referring to simply the coronavirus is acceptable on first reference in stories."

They're adamant that you include "the" before "coranavirus," because--specifically speaking--there are a number of coranviruses, and COVID-19 is simply the version of coranavirus which developed in late 2019. The AP doesn't want you sounding glib and casual in your writing, so don't forget "the."

The AP's explanation also goes on to describe the family of diseases (SARS, MERS, COVID), and warns writers, "Do not exaggerate the risks presented by any of the three diseases by routinely referring to them as deadly, fatal or the like."

Key here is "routinely referring to them." The AP stresses a focus on facts. Yes, the diseases potentially are fatal, but the vast and significant majority of people survive, many without symptoms. Lack of panic doesn't attract readers and viewers, and lack of readers and viewers means lacks of advertising, which is why it appears broadcast and print media largely ignore this rule.


Chicago Manual of Style:

The Centers for Disease Control follows the Chicago Manual of Style Handbook (which is heavily favored by academic journals), and specifically links to the handbook on their site. The CDC gets bonus points for not creating their own style guide.

In essence, the CMOS Handbook limits capitalization at all cost across all forms of writing, unless the word involves a proper noun or acronym. For example, one would never capitalize "cold" or "flu" by themselves, but if referencing a certain pandemic, like the Spanish Flu, it's capitalized. Same rules apply for coronavirus.


American Medical Association Manual of Style:

Short and simple, it's largely the same as the Chicago Manual. The virus isn't capitalized; acronyms are. They could simply link to the Chicago Manual, but that would mean looking less important in the highly nuanced and petty world of style guides.

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So, in conclusion, no capitalization is needed.

Now, we all can go back to washing our hands and schlepping through another day adorned in pajama pants while questioning the merits of ice cream at 11am.

'Earthling' as a word can now be capitalized. Humanity rejoices.

That's right, Martians. We're owed respect now.

The Washington Post can be thanked for clarifying one of the great injustices to humankind in, truly, the entire galaxy.

Sarah Kaplan, a science writer for the Post, was writing a story on black holes and E/earthlings, and wasn't sure what the proper spelling was--'Earthling' or 'earthling.' The problem? The dictionary the newspaper was using, a Merriam-Webster version (those rapscallions again), claimed a lowercase version was to be used. Kaplan wondered, though, why are Klingons, Vulcans, Wookies, and Martians all capitalized, but earthlings get the uppercase shaft? Why the blatant disrespect??

Post science editor Laura Helmuth reached out to Merriam-Webster via Twitter to ask what's up with subjugating humanity to submissive wording:

Question for @MerriamWebster from @WashingtonPost science desk: Why is earthling lowercase but Martian capitalized? Thanks! @SarahKaplan48

— Laura Helmuth (@laurahelmuth) April 5, 2017

The dictionary folks replied quickly, saying they were conferring...and went silent for hours. Kaplan stayed glued to her computer wondering the outcome.

After minutes turned into hours, Merriam-Webster decided to bestow honor upon the human race.

In fact, 'Earthling' now merits inclusion, at least as a variant spelling. We've made a note to update the entry. 🌎👽👍 @laurahelmuth

— Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) April 5, 2017

There we have it. Humanity has risen in status. We haven't been this united as a species since we all came together to admit Kanye lost his cool three years ago.

Fourth grade teacher messes with his students' heads with a fake spelling bee.

Fourth-grade teacher Joe Dombrowski, from Michigan, decided to hold April Fools Day a couple days early (as it landed on a Saturday) and give his students a spelling quiz made up of fake words.

The test was made up of fraudulent words with silent letters, like "speekuzslmn" and "tangateen," along with mystery hyphens and umlauts which bewildered the students who suddenly thought they were having the worst day possible for a 10-year old.





Dombrowski posted a video of him going over the words' spellings on Facebook, as he had the students self-grade their quiz. In the video, you hear students exasperated, saying, "Whaaaat??" and slowly melting down. Tough life.

Dombrowski ends the video by saying, "April Fools. Congratulations, turn in your tests. This will be on your report card."

And there you have it. The worst day in the life of a fourth grader.

...and Louisiana definitely can't spell "definitely."

It was the week of the National Spelling Bee, when every awkward 6-to-14 year old who will be your future boss got on stage and impressed everyone with knowledge of obscure Latin-by-way-of-Middle-French words. This led everyone to question their own personal spelling abilities--and that's where Google came in.

The Great Google Machine dove into its search trends and found the most misspelled word by each state. They used search queries that started with "how to spell" followed by the word troubling people. The results turned out to be a snapshot of each state's psyche.

New Hampshire can't spell "diarrhea," nor can Arizona.

Florida struggles with "tomorrow," potentially because half of its residents might die before then.

South Dakota trips up on "gray," as the cold, desolate misery of living there infects their spelling. Michigan has "gray" concerns as well. But, you know. Michigan.

Minnesota wonders how to spell "broccoli," a mythical vegetable believed by locals to exist in faraway warmer climates.

Texas can't spell "niece," nor Nevada "cousin." Two words tripping up thousands of married couples in each state since the 1850s.

And then there's Massachusetts...which can't spell itself. That's right. The state with the most letters in its name, haphazardly thrown together as if blended in a Cuisinart, is troubling its own citizens to such a degree that people turn to Google for help.

Ohio doesn't have such problems since saying the state's name out loud practically spells itself. But Ohio can't spell "banana," so what do they know?

Pretty much no one in your everyday life knows how to write.

Are you an elitist English snob? Do you go to the grocery store and shake a fist of fury at the express lane stating 12 Items or Less? Do you spit in disgust at the sight of repeated misspellings? Do you privately wear tweed and a monocle and wish you had a British accent?

Your great fashion sense aside, the following photos make up the first of multiple posts about the adventures of everyday life and the dumpster fire that is the English language that surrounds us.

Because everyone really needs an editor in their life.

What's been defaced here is common sense.

This hot mess includes an ellipsis for no apparent reason. Such drama! Don't tell me how it ends!
And clearly Cott Corporation has some hatred toward determiners and prepositions.

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You know what's suspicious? Randomly capitalized words.

Maybe that giant eye should keep a look out for that.

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The Virgin Mary not only needs a pair of shoes, she also needs an apostrophe, too.

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Fewer, Arnold. Not less.

It's sort of like how you have fewer major championships than Jack Nicklaus, not less.

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It's never optional to throw in a hyphen on a whim.

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Did you know that a hyphen is not the same as an em dash? And that periods are sort of non-negotiable?

Also--why? Why would anyone play 1,080 hours of underwater Monopoly?

Wait, I think you're a little off.

Well, at least spelling ineptitude sort of solves the brouhaha over what to call the team.

The indignerty of it all! UK wife tries to kill husband, done in by misspelling.

Note: Does not come in antifreeze flavor.

It's probably safe to assume Douglas Patrick wasn't a charmer, as he wasn't terribly well-liked by his wife Jacqueline, or his adult daughter Katherine. Both women plotted to kill him. One little problem popped up though: His wife wasn't the greatest speller.

The story:

Douglas, 70, was rushed to the hospital on Christmas Day 2013 after having an alcoholic drink called a cherry Lambrini, which is popular in the UK among teenagers as a cheap means to get drunk. Ol' Doug is a kid at heart!

But things seemed a little suspicious from everyone involved. First, ambulance drivers reported that his wife, Jacqueline, handed them a letter purportedly written by her husband that he never wanted to be resuscitated. Later, Jacqueline off-handedly mentioned that maybe her husband drank something blue by accident--antifreeze. Doctors quickly called the police.

Police noticed one quirk with Douglas's supposed letter: The word dignity was spelled "dignerty." Apparently Jacqueline was channeling her inner backwoods hillbilly from the Ozarks, because when police asked her to spell the word, well, lo and behold, she spelled it "dignerty" as well.

After tracking down the cellphones of both women, police had their case cracked. Texts between the two smooth criminals said, "I got the stuff I will give him some later delete txt tell no one ok" and "He feels sick again I gave him more delete this."

Katherine was sentenced to three years in prison. Jacqueline was sentenced to fifteen years, hopefully with dignerty.

Tom Brady deposition proves that billionaires and millionaires don't understand basic grammar and/or spelling.

Tom Brady gives an example of how little grammar people know.

New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady has been in a bit of a brouhaha for the past 8 months over allegations that he, or those associated with him, deflated footballs, which is against NFL regulations.

If you don't know this already, buy a television.

This week, as part of an opening of information from all parties involved in the court case, Tom Brady's emails were released--which shows that millionaires and billionaires somehow are incapable of writing even remotely acceptable sentences, as the website Deadspin notes.

Let's go to the highlights!!

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Whoopsie Number 1:

From: “Kraft, Robert”
Date: February 10, 2015 at 6:30:55 PM EST
To: Tom Brady
Subject: Re: Balance Starement 12.27.14-1.19.15

Tommy I will cover this as I never want misunderstanding between us I’m sorry if this is happened

We will have a chance to talk about the coming year after you talk to Bill and make sure we have a clear understanding

Much love

Robert

First, we have Brady apparently creating a subject line including the very rare balance "starement"--where one apparently creates a credit or debit based on how long they can out-stare you.

Robert Kraft, owner of the Patriots, replies with a complete lack of knowledge that periods and commas exist. Those pesky, little, dot-like thingmajigs!

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Whoopsie Number 2:

From: Tom Brady
To: J.J. Dudum
Sent: January 21, 2015 6:18:25 PM PST

We are the patriots everything is a big deal >


Proper nouns can be tricky vixens! And apparently the Patriots (proper noun) are such a big deal, they're worthy of a comparison (>) without being compared to everything else.

Or Tom Brady is very meta.

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Whoopsie Number 3:

From: Tom Brady 
To: Eisen, Rich 
Sent: December 30, 2014 3:53:53 AM PST 
Received: December 30, 2014 3:53:53 AM PST 
RE: We got our man

Yeah its a great day for the wolverines. Go blue

Good lord, it looks like Brady is trying to hit all of the grammar snafus at once in two brief sentences. No proper nouns, no commas, no period at the end. This isn't a competition for ineptitude, my friend.


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Whoopsie Number 4:

(On scoring clothes from designer Tom Ford)

On Oct 18, 2014, at 5:19 PM, “Tom Brady” wrote:

>hi tania…i hope you are doing well and enjoying your fall. i was wondering if there was anything new to show me or any updates on the polos with the rugby fabric. also do you have any of the black sneakers in the high top in my size or any suit fabrics? thanks Tania


Tom loves him some anti-capitalization and some sweet Polos with the rugby fabric. And when I think sneakers, I think of Tom Ford...for the arch support.

Also, what's with the addiction to the > symbol? It's like a poor man's Pac-Man showing up randomly in his emails.


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Whoopsie Number 5:

(Billionaire owner of the NHL's Vancouver Canucks emails Brady...)

On Feb 22, 2015, at 8:45 PM, Francesco Aquilini wrote:

Just so you know who is coming tomorrow They all know to keep our meeting very confidential, not to discuss it with anyone. See you tomorrow

When you're a billionaire, I guess periods aren't required, or terribly coherent sentences. "Just so you know who is coming tomorrow"? I don't know, Jesus Christ and Superman? You tell me, pal. This was an email regarding a meeting over sports training, but Aquilini makes it sound like a nuclear weapons negotiation.

Also, don't we all kind of wish we were named Francesco Aquilini?

Spelling whoopsy: Uhh, err, Bill Cosby is a rapper?

'Alligations' of being a rapper.

People once said that about Will Smith, too.








via: Deadspin

Colorado Rockies misspell the name of their superstar player.

Keeping with English-perplexing-baseball theme...

The Colorado Rockies only have one superstar player, a shortstop by the name of Troy Tulowitzki.

A mouthful, to be sure, but a name the team should be able to spell correctly considering they pay him $16 million per year and just did a jersey giveaway to their fans.

That would be a jersey giveaway to 15,000 fans, to be precise--and all of those fans received a misspelled jersey.

What's the problem with a missing "t"? Everyone could call him "The Wiz"--a nickname that would be pretty cool if it wasn't already taken.

National Spelling Bee ends in a tie because they ran out of words.

Speechless, because they're out of words.

Really.

The Scripps National Spelling Bee ended in a tie when the final two competitors remaining in the championship round, 14-year old Sriram Hathwar and 13-year old Ansun Sujoe, went toe-to-toe through twelve rounds of words. At that point, Bee officials said they had run out of "championship" words and declared a tie.

Out of words.

WORDS. At a spelling bee.

Here's a hot tip to the good folks at Scripps:

The Oxford English Dictionary has 171,476 words in its twenty volume second edition. Feel free to borrow some polysyllabic wonderfulness. Looking for trickier words? The OED has 47,156 words deemed obsolete. If Sriram and Ansun know how to spell 47,156 obsolete words, they need to be tested for performance enhancing drugs.

Now, you might be a stickler and remark that Scripps uses very difficult words in these spelling bees, especially in the championship round. Scripps uses "championship" words after all. It's the championship!

History suggests otherwise. Over the years, the competition has been won on some fairly common entries. A selection of words that won the bee over the year include:

1925: gladiolus (the flower)
1927: luxuriance
1930: fracas
1932: knack
1933: torsion
1934: deteriorating
1935: intelligible
1936: interning
1937: promiscuous
1938: sanitarium
1939: canonical
1940: therapy
1941: initials
1942: sacrilegious
1948: psychiatry
1956: condominium
1959: catamaran
1967: Chihuahua
1970: croissant
1975: incisor
1976: narcolepsy
1981: sarcophagus
1984: luge
1993: kamikaze

Only in the past decade or so has Scripps decided to enter the realm of "what the--?" words, polysyllabic hot messes that no individual uses in their daily life, ever.

If the National Spelling Bee survived luge in 1984, it could survive lesser words in 2014.



Side note: Ansun wins for best dresser for rocking the red bow tie. The kid's got moxie.



photo Washington Post

The Onion: 15 Most Common Misspellings

Quite often people omit the letter C in the everyday noun “truck.”

The Onion has a chuckly-ha-ha about misspellings.

It's only funny if you read the Oxford English Dictionary for a swinging good time--or you're an insomniac who quietly recites "I before E, except after C" in an attempt to sleep.

I've done both.




Pity me.



photo: The Onion

Spelling whoopsies! We're all going to die!

Go big or go home!



Via: Deadspin

White House Twitter feed: Let your mom know you don't know how to spell.

Some poor White House intern just lost any future letter of recommendation.

Yes, yes, the ever-classic piece/peas/peace spelling whoopsie you usually see from 4th graders and in emails from Nigerian princes looking your help in banking deals happened to the White House Twitter feed today.

As a promotion entitled #GetCovered to the Affordable Care Act, the feed showed Obama holding a sign promoting the health care initiative. Later, to continue the promotion, the following sign was posted:

Yeah, that intern can kiss that administrative assistant job for the local congressman goodbye.

GetSpelling. Because people won't mock you afterward.

Missouri driver offended by license plate 'WH0 R8X' assigned to her.

"Who Rakes"?

Deb Levy claims the letter and number combination is offensive and tells FOX2 St. Louis she demanded a free new license plate from the DMV.

Apparently not a raking enthusiast, Levy says the DMV claimed the plate only read "who," and told her to pony up an extra $17 for a new plate.

"Can you spell?!" Levy yelled to the clerks. She believes the wording suggests she's a "whore 8 times."

Fox 2 reports that plates are created with a standard formula, meaning there are a number of other cars driving around Missouri that question "who...?"




photo: KTVI

Lesus! Vatican pulls medals that misspell 'Jesus.'

The medals, commemorating Pope Francis' papacy, number more than 6,000. The error was caught before most were bought, although four sold before the mistake was noticed. Experts expect those medals to rocket in value.

Common misspelling mistake. Jesus was such a minor character in the bible after all.





photo: The Telegraph

Continuing the theme of game shows taking a crowbar to a contestant's legs...

Here are the folks at Jeopardy! sticking it to a little kid for his inability to spell under pressure.

The rules of Jeopardy! say that the word can't be egregiously incorrect in its spelling.

The Emancipation Proclamation. Little Thomas added an extra "t."

Looks egregious to me. It took Trabek at least 0.000000198 seconds to sound it out.

A chess set made out of letters is a thing.

UK design consultants hat-trick design have created a typographic chess set using chess notation for the pieces. (K for king, Q for queen, Kt for knight, etc.)

Onto the photos:

For all of you typography junkies, apparently the font is Champion (lightweight) by Hoefler Frere Jones and cut from 25mm acrylic.

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Sorry. Whenever the topic of typography comes out I black out for a little while. Disinterest is a powerful thing, let me tell you.



photos: hat-trick design

Banner at high school football stadium keeps it classy.

The word 'public' is one reason that being a professional proofreader is an actual career path.

Because, as we mentioned earlier, this changes the meaning of a lot of materials. In this case, here's a spelling whoopsy on a banner at a football stadium in Pennsylvania.

Hey, you never know when you might want to sponsor a sex ed class. Advertising rates are rock bottom, and the class always pays attention. Unless you mention abstinence, and then...umm...what...wait, what?



Source: Deadspin

40% off misspelled San Francisco Forty/Fourty-Niners cap.

Lids.com has this misspelled hat--regularly $24.99--now available for an unbelievable 40% off.

Most people won't even notice. The spelling, that is. Your cheapness is something everyone notices and thinks is kind of offensive at this point.







photo/story: Deadspin.com