Monday, March 13, 2006

AP style updates: gay and Myanmar

The AP Stylebook has updated its gay entry. The new guideline:
gay Used to describe men and women attracted to the same sex, though lesbian is the more common term for women. Preferred over homosexual except in clinical contexts or references to sexual activity.

Include sexual orientation only when it is pertinent to a story, and avoid references to "sexual preference" or to a gay or alternative "lifestyle."
Here is how the entry used to read:
gay Acceptable as popular synonym for both male and female homosexuals (n. and adj.), although it is generally associated with males, while lesbian is the more common term for female homosexuals. Avoid references to gay, homosexual or alternative "lifestyle."
The lesbian, lesbianism entry (Lowercase in references to homosexual women, except in names of organizations) is no more. The old sex changes entry is now under the transgender heading.

Online, the transsexuals entry still leads you to sex changes, which directs you to transgender. I assume that's an oversight that will soon be fixed.

AP also added an entry on Myanmar, formerly called Burma:
Myanmar Use this name for the country and the language. Use Myanmar people or Myanmar for the inhabitants. (Formerly Burma.)
Before, you could only divine the style by seeing that Myanmar was listed in the Indochinese Peninsula and Southeast Asia entries. Interestingly, in one of my hard copies [2002, I think], Burma was still listed in the Buddha entry but was Myanmar in the others.

1 Comments:

At 12:31 PM, February 02, 2011, Anonymous Generic Viagra said...

Well the true is, that the term it's already in teh society since I don't know many years ago, for example the spanish academy in spain, why we must start using a word officially until they approve it... I speak well and no one will say to me how I must speak.
Good luck.

 

Post a Comment

<< Home