Words are extremely important in the newspaper business.
While I won't claim that we always make the right decisions on word choices, I can say we usually put a lot of care and thought into them. Even when they don't seem like that big of a deal.
Such was the case this morning when I was copy editing a caption for a Page A3 photo in Friday's edition. The caption was for a photo called "Round and Round" - it also can be seen on our Local News/Today's Headlines page on this Web site - that showed a girl playing with a Hula Hoop during gymnastics class Thursday night at the Green County Family YMCA in Monroe.
Or is that hula hoop?
Or Hula hoop?
That was a question I raised to those in attendance at about 6:30 a.m. In this case, that included Features Editor Mary Jane Grenzow and Sports Editor Christopher Heimerman. The consensus, though it wasn't an overwhelming endorsement, was that it would Hula Hoop, because it is a trademarked name.
I consulted the other source present in the room at the time, the Internet. It, of course, gave me varying answers. The best I could tell, it would be Hula Hoop if it were the real "Hula Hoop" product that the girl, Alexis Maxwell, was playing with. Not being able to tell, I chose to stick with the trademarked name, and capitalized Hula Hoop.
That wasn't the only question raised, however. Actually, the first one was whether Hula Hoops could be used as a verb, as in "Alexis Maxwell Hula Hoops on Thursday night ..."
Hula Hoop, of course, is a noun. Can it also be used as a verb? If you're just talking, of course it can. If it's in a newspaper, I'm not so sure.
So our panel discussed other ways it could be written in the caption. They all sounded more stilted and stuffy than using Hula Hoops as a verb, so we stayed with it.
We might have discussed two words in a page A3 caption for two minutes. No wonder our days are so long!
While I won't claim that we always make the right decisions on word choices, I can say we usually put a lot of care and thought into them. Even when they don't seem like that big of a deal.
Such was the case this morning when I was copy editing a caption for a Page A3 photo in Friday's edition. The caption was for a photo called "Round and Round" - it also can be seen on our Local News/Today's Headlines page on this Web site - that showed a girl playing with a Hula Hoop during gymnastics class Thursday night at the Green County Family YMCA in Monroe.
Or is that hula hoop?
Or Hula hoop?
That was a question I raised to those in attendance at about 6:30 a.m. In this case, that included Features Editor Mary Jane Grenzow and Sports Editor Christopher Heimerman. The consensus, though it wasn't an overwhelming endorsement, was that it would Hula Hoop, because it is a trademarked name.
I consulted the other source present in the room at the time, the Internet. It, of course, gave me varying answers. The best I could tell, it would be Hula Hoop if it were the real "Hula Hoop" product that the girl, Alexis Maxwell, was playing with. Not being able to tell, I chose to stick with the trademarked name, and capitalized Hula Hoop.
That wasn't the only question raised, however. Actually, the first one was whether Hula Hoops could be used as a verb, as in "Alexis Maxwell Hula Hoops on Thursday night ..."
Hula Hoop, of course, is a noun. Can it also be used as a verb? If you're just talking, of course it can. If it's in a newspaper, I'm not so sure.
So our panel discussed other ways it could be written in the caption. They all sounded more stilted and stuffy than using Hula Hoops as a verb, so we stayed with it.
We might have discussed two words in a page A3 caption for two minutes. No wonder our days are so long!
