The Bronx

Sidewalk Café in Paris

Nothing like a good word kerfuffle to get the little gray cells jumping up and down. The things people give their attention to.

But it's probably for their own good. If all we ever did was worry about the "BIG picture" we'd never get out of bed but would ask for the paperwork for our own extinction be expedited.

It's like the friend I once had who constantly listened to sports radio and the tidal wave of opinions that came through. I marveled that a 70+-year-old man could froth at the mouth at things Mike Francesa said about sports when he had a radio show. TV and newspapers have these guys as well. The highly opinionated, never wrong types who Monday morning quarterback every play call from the previous day. The "what-ifers" Who listens to this stuff and reads it?

It is probably good therapy for the mentally isolated who take comfort in the meaningless. Without the safety valve of these motor mouth, outspoken speakers we'd probably have more mass shootings. But it seems unusual that a journalistic style book can create a fevered dialog about word choice. But it has.

Saturday's print edition of the NYT carries the short piece by Roger Cohen, "In Style Book, 'the French' Are Lumped Into Odd Company."

It seems the Associated Press, A.P.  stylebook has come out with writing style advice that goes: "We recommend avoiding general and often dehumanizing 'the' labels such as the poor, the mentally ill, the French, the disabled, the college educated."

It's given as an example, and conceivably could have included citizens of other countries: The British, the English, the Greeks, the Italians, the Turks, the Spanish, the Dutch, the Swedes, The Finns, the Norwegians, the Jews, the Palestinians,.." Span the globe.

But the stylebook does say 'the French' and no other nationality. The French have therefore got their crullers in a bunch. They've been placed between the mentally ill and the disabled. Yes, but they were placed ahead of the college educated. No matter. They're mad.

The style guide was offered in an A.P. Tweet (who knew they Tweeted). It quickly found itself in a tidal wave of mockery, with the French embassy weighing in. A.P. pulled back, and eliminated 'the French' from its example.

The A.P. Tweet generated an astounding 23 million views, (who follows A.P. Tweets?) and 18,000 retweets. Mary Norris, the Comma Queen, (@maryNorrisTNY) weighed in with her own Tweet pointing out a reference to the NYT story

But prior to rectifying their faux pas, the A.P. attempted to explain their reasoning along the lines that placing 'the' ahead of some words created an illusion of stereotyping and demeaning. Some bright light, Lauren Easton, the vice president of A.P. corporate communications, told the French daily newspaper Le Monde that the "reference to 'the French,' as well as the reference to the college educated is an effort to show that labels shouldn't be used for anyone, whether that are traditionally. or stereotypically viewed as positive, negative, or neutral." Well, that covers that. The death of 'the.' 

For those who may not know it, New York City is not a sprawling geographic area, but is one that spans five counties, or boroughs: There are major cities in the United States, Los Angeles and Chicago in particular, that are inside larger counties; L.A. is in Los Angeles County; Chicago is in Cook County.

New York City has five district attorneys, one for each of the counties: New York (Manhattan), Kings County (Brooklyn), Queens County, Richmond (Staten Island) and of course Bronx County. 

New York City has two U.S. Attorney districts: Southern Districts and Eastern District.

Pictured to the right is an image of the Alexander Hamilton Bridge spanning the Harlem River.

The whole initial A.P. stylebook stance sounds a bit like 'wokeness' gone a bridge too far.

How the A.P. stylebook would get around not saying the Alexander Bridge connects Manhattan to the Bronx is best left for another day. I wonder if they'd get back to me.

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