When the first email was sent in 1971, Richard Nixon was president. The video game “Pong” was still in development. The Pittsburgh Pirates were a good baseball team.
This is to say, technological achievements like the email have lived long enough to have their own grandchildren. And yet, one of the most storied magazines in American history, The New Yorker, has only just updated its copyediting guidelines to incorporate more contemporary stylings of words related to the internet.
No longer will The New Yorker write about “e-mails” in your “in box” that you access on “the Internet” through a “web site.” At last, the magazine — best known as that logo emblazoned on millennials’ tote bags in Brooklyn — will join us in the twenty-first century.
The New Yorker’s Head of Copy, Andrew Boynton, describes a sort of clandestine rendezvous among editors that took place in January to discuss possible style changes at the magazine. Even former copy editors were involved. (As someone who works at a news outlet, I can confirm that it would be quite odd if an editor who hasn’t worked here in ten years showed up to discuss how we should approach our coverage of DeepSeek).
Nonetheless, this cohort of dedicated grammarians came to an agreement.
“It was decided that, while no one wanted to change some of the long-standing ‘quirky’ styles (teen-ager, per cent, etc.), some of [the] newer vintage could go,” Boynton wrote. “Some of you may lament the changes as being radically modern, while others are likely to greet them as long overdue.”
This is a departure for The New Yorker, though the publication’s most dedicated readers will be relieved to know that it will not abandon its steadfast commitment to the diaeresis — that’s the word for when the magazine uses spellings like “coöperative” or “reënergize.” This way, the publishers and readers of the New Yorker alike can feel superior, because they know the difference between the diaresis and the umlaut — a distinction that is probably only useful if you work at The New Yorker.
Admittedly, all publications — including TechCrunch — have some unique style quirks.
It was only last year that we were finally granted permission to use the Oxford comma. The announcement was refreshing, surprising, and exciting.
