The Associated Press has apologized and deleted a tweet advising journalists that \u2018the French\u2019 is a term to be avoided along with \u2018the mentally ill\u2019 and \u2018the disabled\u2019. The agency\u2019s advice was ridiculed online, including by France\u2019s Embassy in Washington.
\nThe Associated Press\u2019 stylebook is considered one of the most authoritative guides on the use of the English language for journalists, and its 2022 edition comes in at a whopping 640 pages of rules on capitalization, punctuation, spelling, and jargon.
\nThe stylebook is constantly updated, with AP regularly issuing new advice via Twitter. In a now-deleted tweet posted on Thursday, the agency stated \u201cWe recommend avoiding general and often dehumanizing \u2018the\u2019 labels such as the poor, the mentally ill, the French, the disabled, the college-educated. Instead, use wording such as people with mental illnesses. And use these descriptions only when clearly relevant.\u201d
\nThe inclusion of \u2018the French\u2019 on the list caused a stir. Writer Sarah Haider joked that there is \u201cnothing as dehumanizing as being considered one of the French. Rather, such individuals should be thought of as \u2018suffering from Frenchness\u2019 and deserve our compassion and prayers.\u201d
\nThe French Embassy in the US suggested that it would change its name to the \u201cEmbassy of Frenchness in the US.\u201d
\nAP announced on Friday that it had deleted its tweet \u201cbecause of an inappropriate reference to French people.\u201d However, the agency reiterated its earlier advice on \u201cavoiding general \u2018the\u2019 labels such as the poor, the mentally ill, the wealthy, the disabled, the college-educated.\u201d
\nThe AP\u2019s aversion to the word \u2018the\u2019 is not the only piece of language advice to make the news in recent weeks. The University of Southern California\u2019s School of Social Work announced earlier this month that it would remove the word \u2018field\u2019 (in the context of \u2018conducting field work\u2019) from its curriculum due to the fact that slaves and low-paid immigrants mainly worked in fields.<\/p>\n
Rt
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The Associated Press has apologized and deleted a tweet advising journalists that \u2018the French\u2019 is a term to be avoided along with \u2018the mentally ill\u2019 and \u2018the disabled\u2019. The agency\u2019s advice was ridiculed online, including by France\u2019s Embassy in Washington. The Associated Press\u2019 stylebook is considered one of the most authoritative guides on the use […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":4762,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2088,1811,1371],"class_list":["post-4761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-associated","tag-french","tag-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4761"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4763,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4761\/revisions\/4763"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}