My First World Problem of the Day is a terrible ego problem. You see, recently my employer purchased a gold mine for me and a colleague in the form of a subscription to the online version of the APA Style Manual.
I don’t know if it’s because I was an English major or that I’m now a librarian but this brought me stupendous joy. I spent several happy hours updating the Library’s style manual cheat sheet and in general looking up fascinating grammar trivia like the proper way to refer to famous people with disabilities or illnesses (you only mention it if it’s germane to what you are saying right then and then you would say, for instance, “Cat Stevens, who is now blind, made his first appearance since this health condition was made public” and not “Cat Stevens is suffering from blindness.”). I’ve gone back to look new things up regularly. Can never be too careful when it comes to your grammar.
However, there has been one hiccup.
Do you remember when grammar wisdom was that in printed communication you spelled out numbers one through nine and used numerals for 10+?
Well, in my regular surveying of “all that I thought was true and want to confirm is the same in APA” I looked up numbers and came across the following:
- numerals: In general, spell out one through nine: The Yankees finished second. He had nine months to go.
- Use figures for 10 or above and whenever preceding a unit of measure or referring to ages of people, animals, events or things. Also in all tabular matter, and in statistical and sequential forms.
I’m having a dreadful time with this. It’s the first sentence of that second bullet point that’s doing me in. I simply can’t remember and apply everything in that list and it’s tearing at me. Maybe if they’d broken that rule up into a series of shorter sentences I’d have an easier time with it. As it is I’m living under the burden of constantly wondering about using numbers in every day communication. It’s to the point where I think I’m just going to have to print it out and post it on my cubicle wall until I have it down.
Did you ever wonder what kept librarians up at night? Well, for real, somebody has to be on top of this stuff and I’m happily at the vanguard.
Plum Librarian LLC 