Kathlyn Clore

I am in the middle of a tedious editing project.

Flickr image from user vivoandando

Many documents have been poured over. Much has been learned - by me. Some phrases have been changed. Also, by me.

Hopefully, both products - me and the documents - have been improved.

A problem I’ve been mulling:

New terminology reflects a gradual shift in publicly accepted thinking and emerging realities. As Innovation Journalism playboy David Nordfors wrote in 2007, innovation requires new words (iPhone, smart phone, Twitter) and a public that can use those words in conversation.

Simultaneously, as we integrate new words the existing realities move toward becoming “old” and the terms we use to describe the existing reality become stale.

This is a problem for editors, who have to decide what phrases are passe, which represent commonly accepted vernacular, and what terms represent still-fringe nomenclature.

At the moment, it still seems acceptable for media workers and academics to use the terms:

New Media
Cross-Media
Cross-platform
Hybrid media
Online media
Internet media
Online Television

Which of these these terms fair and accurate? A bit passe, some of them, I have begun to think.

Here I begin to feel like a climate change scientist: Can I describe a particular time frame in which these terms will go bad? If so, how? (With a degree in linguistics?)

New media doesn’t particularly seem that new anymore; the term is particularly confounding because “old media” isn’t an apt characterization of anything, really. To deem “old media” and “print media” synonymous would be a cheat, inept.

I do like the phrase “legacy media brands”, I like how it hints at “the establishment”; those large branded chains that are slow to change.

Separately: In the face of: free papers, the free press and freesheets — what’s the most succinct term for papers that cost money? Paid-for papers?

Anyone?

I’m really sorry to those of you who either:

Miss Earth contestants and their inability to use correct capitalization

1. Have native languages that call for capitalization of all nouns (This means you, Deutschland!);

2. Learned to speak MySpace before English.

Still: the awful Internet tendency to either capitalize or lowercase random words which should not be not capitalized or lowercased has to stop. Please.

I’m normally not a stringent grammar person. I thank goodness I have found the Grammar Girl podcast series (which is, happily, very searchable) so I can find quick and dirty tricks to help me remember how and when to use “comprise”. And I probably have to turn to my AP or Guardian (or EJC, or European Commission, or Times, or or or!) more times than I should.

But the capitalization issue, along with random or missing articles (the/an/a) are driving me crazy in an editing project with which I am currently busy. I’m editing what is essentially a series of encyclopedia articles about media conditions in a particular country, all written by non-native English speakers.

I thought Mario Garcia asked a great question on his design/innovation blog when he asked, “Do we associate all things Internet with lower case?”

This question, and Garcia’s redesign of the Daily Handelsblatt, a German newspaper, sparked a series of posts about whether the paper should use a logo with an uppercase “H”.

I most liked these two quotes Garcia posted on this topic:

From Oliver Reichenstein, lead designer of zeit.de, tagesanzeiger.ch and krone.at: “Yes, many internet users believe that internet is all about ‘lower case’ as the urls are fed so, therefore anything that is associated with it should reflect it. I think the truth is while the url in ‘lowercase’ is only a function of the medium, the internet, where the information being served, it has nothing to do with the branding of the Online product. On the contrary the Online property is best represented with a look that can then be extended to other areas and in this instance by the square in the brand colour and the cap ‘H’ - a direct take-out from the brick and mortar presence of the product.”

Also, from Rodrigo Fino, Garcia Media Latin America/Buenos Aires: “Lowercase was used because of technical restrictions years ago. Today all internet browsers and email programs understand uppercase.”

Exactly! So regardless of technology, branding or generational differences, can’t we all just go ahead and just embrace correct usage of English, which does not call for capitalization of anything other than proper nouns? Please?

Even online!