Style

I've been thinking a lot lately about the style I use when I'm writing personal things (e-mails, Facebook posts, this blog). Do I use Chicago style? AP? Should I even care? Of course I think about this kind of thing—I'm an editor. Every serial comma or lack thereof invites discussion. Every spaced ellipses makes a blip on my radar. Each errant "comprised of" makes me wonder what went wrong.

So where does that leave me, a lowly blogger? When I was editing solely at a publishing company, I stuck with Chicago style. Easy enough. I really like Chicago. But now I've got another job, one that defers to AP. OK, so I edit with AP at one job and Chicago at another. I can handle that. But when I'm writing things like this, I'm obsessive enough to still want it to be perfect (even though it's just a silly blog post).

Create my own style? Mix of both? That makes me think about what would be a really fun job: working for the University of Chicago Press (or any company like it), sitting around all day debating grammar rules. Deciding what style rules to keep and what to get rid of. Long live the en dash, for example! Go ahead and change Web site to website. This is getting me excited . . . (or should it be ... ?)