28 September 2010

A Poem Brought to You by The Letter C

Written for my Copyediting class.

The AP Stylebook has many guidelines,
In twenty-six letters they come,
Q, X, Y, and Z have few entries,
But an abundance of rules are C from:

Capitalize cabinet, canal, and church
When proper names you are using.
Consulate with its nation, but no other time;
Look up coast---it can get confusing.

You pour cement mixture to make concrete;
Controversial is overused.
Committee you never should abbreviate,
And the term Chicano is rude.

US cable networks are listed by name,
The names of their owners, too.
All the rules of chess are listed as well,
But what with them would you do?

You convince to ideas and persuade to action;
You're convicted of, not for, a crime.
Convert currency when needed (but not too much)
Using US dollar and Euro signs.

Included are spellings of various words,
Such as coffeecake, cornmeal, and corkscrew.
Those ones, and colorblind, are all one word,
As are crosstown and crabmeat---who knew?

As a unit, a couple's a singular noun,
But referring to two it is plural:
"The couple were married," is properly phrased
For the wedding of a boy and his girl.

If you have questions on terms or grammar or places
That begin with the letter C,
Don't be concerned, the answers are here
In the stylebook produced by AP.

2 comments:

  1. you are amazing, and I thoroughly enjoyed this poem. Wish I was as talented as you!

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  2. I need the AP style manual for my job. I am updating a data base and wondering about whether to use Vice-President or Vice President. Because this is Europe, they want the UK rules. From Mitch (don't worry, I am not asking/infering for you to tell me the correct rules)

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