Keep looking AP, someday you will find the one size that fits all.

I begin to see why AP style annoys you so much.

I always thought of trying to learn AP Style as brain exercise.

"It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that so it was laid down in the time of Henry IV. It is still more revolting if the grounds upon which it was laid down have vanished long since, and the rule simply persists from blind imitation of the past."

—Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., "The Path of the Law", 10 Harvard Law Review 457 (1897)

If only all life's annoyances could be dismissed so easily.

Did you include a reason for your style note when sending out this message? Something to the effect of "There are many similar places that would get the lowercase treatment, but when talking about the New York City location, it should be capitalized" perhaps? Or is there some other reason you cited?

I imagined that the reasoning behind the style note would be apparent, since "Ground Zero" refers to a specific place, widely known by that name, regularly capitalized in the kind of journalistic and popular uses that the AP's stylebook editors cite in justiifying their rulings.

By the way, the lexicographer Ben Zimmer has discovered that I am one of the first persons, perhaps the very first, to publicly use "ground zero" for the WTC bombing site: see . That posting predated by a few minutes the first known use on national TV.

Ben wrote and asked me where, if anywhere, I heard it from. I told him that I almost certainly did not hear it from anyone, and that it arose spontaneously in my mind.

John Cowan, that's very Topsy-like of you.

Cheers,
Tim

P.S. And congrats on being cited by Mr. Zimmer for anything; it's a distinction I think I'll never enjoy.