We used to have a saying on the copy desk: Don't follow the stylebook out the window. In other words, common sense should govern which style rules you enforce.

The Associated Press Stylebook is the guide we use for deciding how to handle some usage matters. We follow it -- mostly. Some of us love it, and some of us hate it. Some of us see it as a blunt instrument we can use to subdue crazed writers. And some folks see it as a rich source for parody. Those are the people behind the Fake AP Stylebook on Twitter. Warning: They use words that are decidedly not in the AP Stylebook but which can be heard from time to time in certain workplaces.

The Associated Press has updated its widely used stylebook for 2009. It has at least a couple of entries that will irritate those who don't care for turning nouns into verbs.

Amid all the hoopla over the Tar Heels' national basketball championship, a reader calls our attention to the difference between celebrant and celebrator.

A lead on a story from a few days ago with the construction "stamped to death" made me stop. I thought other readers might trip over "stamped" in a construction where we usually see "stomped."

The Associated Press Stylebook gives us a window on changing concerns and word usage.

Among the new entries in the Associated Press Stylebook for 2008 is one on "myriad." The AP says that "myriad" is an adjective and is not followed by "of." The dictionary that AP uses, though, gives the noun use of "myriad" first.

"Myriad" means an indefinitely large number; it is a synonym of "innumerable." Bryan A. Garner writes in A Dictionary of Modern American Usage that "myriad is more concise as an adjective than as a noun." Fowler's Modern English Usage points out that the word comes from Greek for "ten thousand." Almost no one adheres to that old meaning for "myriad."

Here is a post on The Mavens' Word of the Day about myriad as a noun. The American Book of English Usage also points out the long history of myriad as a noun. Merriam-Webster online also recognizes myriad as a noun.

As for me, I will use "myriad" as an adjective. I'd rather not fight about it. 

I ordered the new version of the Associated Press Stylebook for my home use (we expect to get them in office soon). The book has a summary of the changes right after the foreword on a page titled "What's New." One of the most interesting changes for grammar geeks is the "collective nouns" entry. Here is a part of the entry:

Collective nouns: Nouns that denote a unit take singular verbs and pronouns: class, committee, crowd, family, group, herd, jury, orchestra, team. ...

Team names and band names, however, take plural verbs. The Miami Heat are battling for the league's worst record.

That team and band names are to be treated as plural is a change. I am glad that the stylebook finally spells this out. Although we had been treating singular-sounding names as singular (The Who comes to mind), I agree with this rule. It's easier to apply it consistently.

P.S. I guess that should be "The Who come to mind." 

A current story in The News & Observer makes a passing reference to a "prison trustee." I thought the term was "trusty." So I checked online first and found this reference in the Columbia Guide to Standard American English. Then I checked the Associated Press Stylebook. Indeed, a trustee is a "person to whom another's property or the management of another's property is given," the stylebook says. A trusty is "a prison inmate granted special privileges as a trustworthy person."

I wonder if correction department lingo has changed over the years or if it's just a matter of mixing up two spellings. I did a quick search of the N&O's archives since 1990 and found a few references to "prison trusty." One story in our archives from The Fayetteville Observer about the Cumberland County jail has this passage:

"We refer to them as 'inmate help,' not trusties," said Deputy Sheriff John McRainey, the chief jailer. "We don't use the term 'trusty' any more."

Why not?

"In here, we don't trust anyone," he said. Though McRainey smiled, his tone affirmed that he wasn't kidding.