Idiosyncrasies
Student references
- We follow the NCAA in referring to participants in sports as "student-athletes" (note hyphen).
- We use "first-year student" rather than "freshman."
Computerese
- The word "e-mail" is still hyphenated (although, as our language evolves, it stands a good chance of losing the hyphen in the relatively near future). The word "online," on the other hand, has already lost the hyphen. And, although AP still prefers "homepage" to be two words, we like it as one.
- The word "Web" is capitalized when it refers to the World Wide Web (although, like the graham cracker, it’s a likely candidate to be lowercased in the future). Derivations, like "website," "webmaster," and "webcast," are not capped; the word "Internet" is.
- Use a hyphen in the word "dot-coms," a generic term for businesses operating on the Internet.
- CD-ROM, MIDI, RAM, and URL are printed using all caps.
- In running text, URLs (and e-mails) may be boldfaced or enclosed in angle brackets to avoid confusion with other punctuation: "The College’s website is gustavus.edu."
- Our Web people tell us that College websites whose addresses begin with www may be listed without that tag, as it is added automatically. If a website does not use a conventional "www" address, the "http://" should be included: gustavus.edu, but http://hellowalk.gustavus.edu. Follow site conventions for other sites.
A nod to Latin
- A retired male professor may earn "emeritus" status; a retired female professor would earn "emerita" status: "Verlin Carlson, professor emeritus of psychology," "Professor Emerita Ann Brady." Groups are "emeriti professors." (Regardless of actual rank upon retirement, they are professors emeriti.)
- A female graduate is an "alumna," a male is an "alumnus." "Alumnae" describes a group of female graduates, while "alumni" is used for both an all-male group of graduates and a mixed group, following the Latin usage.
