BR Writer’s Tips: Commonly Misspelled Sports Words, I
***A note from Ryan: Before you inquire about a particular word, use the Firefox “Find” feature (Command-F) to search for the word in the original list and subsequent discussion thread. You may just discover that your question has already been answered.***
Sports words can be tricky—especially when you’re relying on a run-of-the-mill spell-checker. When in doubt, your best bet is to refer to trusted sources (e.g. ESPN.com, as much as I hate to admit it) for accepted spellings.
What follows is the beginning of a list of the most commonly misspelled sports terms. Suggestions for more are very much welcome…
(Correct spellings in CAPITAL LETTERS)
* PRESEASON, not pre-season or pre season
* Also: POSTSEASON, MIDSEASON, OFFSEASON
* HOME RUN, not homerun
* SUPER BOWL, not Superbowl
* RUNNING BACK, not runningback
* CARMELO Anthony, not Carmello Anthony
* LeBron James, not Lebron James (capital B)
* BACKCOURT and FRONTCOURT, not back court and front court
* FANBASE, not fan base
* LINEUP, not line up or line-up
* BACKUP, not back up or back-up
* MATCHUP, not match up for match-up
* CENTER FIELD, not centerfield
* Also: LEFT FIELD and RIGHT FIELD
* SHORTSTOP, not short stop
* FIRST BASE, not firstbase
* Also: SECOND BASE and THIRD BASE
More to follow as I’m reminded of them—and as they make your favorite managing editor pull his hair out.
File Under: Writer's Tips
Comments
These comments were salvaged from the depths of cyberspace and reposted on Aug. 6, 2008 (with apologies for the poor formatting)…
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What’s the difference between center field and center field? I don’t see one, but maybe I’m dense. Or maybe not.
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tealish said on February 11, 2008 2:58 am
Oh, unless we are supposed to be exclaming CENTER FIELD in caps everytime we use the word!
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Sean Crowe said on February 11, 2008 5:23 am
I’m sure I’m not the only one who read this and though “Holy crap, I brought this on!”
Spell check hates the word “matchup”…and seeing the red squiggly line under a word makes me crazy. That’s a bad combination for the editors here.
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Robert H. Spain said on February 11, 2008 7:34 am
Ryan, you should’ve misspelled all the words in the blog’s title. “Comonlie Mispeled Sportse Wurds, Volum Won”
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Ryan Alberti said on February 11, 2008 2:34 pm
Good eyes on CF, tealish—the incorrect spelling is in fact “centerfield”…all one word. (The irony of a typo in a post about spelling speaks for itself. For shame.)
The working title for this entry was “The Sean Crowe Files.” I changed it at the last minute. I hear you on the red squiggly line…but I refuse to let Bill Gates and his MS underlings dictate metaphysical and/or orthographic reality. Bastards.
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Sean Crowe said on February 13, 2008 12:14 am
Bill Gates doesn’t control my red squiggly line. I use Firefox, which conveniently includes it’s own red squiggly line.
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Erick Blasco said on February 13, 2008 4:50 am
lol, I accidently spell him “Carmello” all the time, even though an editor at my school newspaper corrected me. Hopefully this blog entry will be further reinforcement to stop putting in that damn extra “l.”
And yeah Sean, nothing annoys me more than those squiggly lines. There should be a Word Processor for sports. Maybe when the behind the scenes guys get some spare time they can patent that
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Ryan Alberti said on February 13, 2008 3:19 pm
Ah, Firefox–the most fascist open-source web browser in the world…
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MoonDog said on February 19, 2008 6:08 am
lol - guilty on several counts. I know how you feel about ESPN. I appreciate this as I’ll copy it and use it frequently.
Thanks for taking the time to help us out.
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Ryan Alberti said on February 19, 2008 2:44 pm
Happy to help, MD. We’re all guilty…some of just wallow in it more than others.
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Jay Middleton said on March 12, 2008 1:32 am
Can we add “halfcourt” and “SportsCenter” to the list?
And what is our position on “semifinal”?
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Ryan Alberti said on March 14, 2008 5:41 pm
“Half court” should be two words…”half-court” when an adjective. Good call on “SportsCenter.” You’re right on “semifinal”—one word, no hyphen.
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Ryan Alberti said on March 14, 2008 5:42 pm
“Midcourt,” on the other hand, is one word.
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scott said on April 21, 2008 5:45 pm
What about “Game One” or “Game 1″ or “game one”…Yadda…
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Ryan Alberti said on April 21, 2008 8:45 pm
“Game One”
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scott said on April 22, 2008 3:49 pm
thanks
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Ryan Alberti said on April 23, 2008 2:53 pm
My pleasure.
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TxWhen said on May 7, 2008 3:38 am
Why shoud King James’ name be spelled “LeBron” instead of “Lebron”?
I am a NBA fan, but I not good at English. Thanks
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Ryan Alberti said on May 7, 2008 3:02 pm
“LeBron” (with the capital B) is how the King spells his name. Most names that start with “Le” or “La” have a capital letter in the middle: LeRoy, LaMarcus, etc. Screwy, I know…but that’s how it is. I blame the French.
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scott said on May 8, 2008 11:10 pm
at bats???
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Ryan Alberti said on May 9, 2008 2:17 pm
As you have it: two words, no hyphen. Some dispute on the ‘Net about this, but the no-hyphen crowd seems to have the upper hand.
NOTE: This standard subsequently revised—AT BAT for adverb usage; AT-BAT for noun usage. See reply below for further details. —RA
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Tim said on May 21, 2008 5:48 am
I assume we go with 3-pointer like with AP style, right? I’ve been changing that in every story so far and Emily hasn’t said anything to me, but I just realized it’s not actually written anywhere on here.
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Tim said on May 21, 2008 5:51 am
Also, why does the no-hyphen crowd seem to have the upper hand? The AP and MLB use the hyphen; why be different?
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Tim said on May 21, 2008 5:55 am
Same with Game 1 — The AP, major newspapers and the actual professional sports leagues use the digit instead of spelling it out. I can be fine going with it, but I just want a reason to make me feel better.
Try searching the two versions in Google News and you’ll see what I mean.
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Tim said on May 21, 2008 6:03 am
I also can’t find a ruling on NBA positions in terms of numbers: “Paul Pierce can play the two or the three.” My instinct is the digit, but everything else says spell it out. Thoughts?
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Ryan Alberti said on May 21, 2008 3:41 pm
To answer these one at a time:
- “three-pointer”…not “3-pointer”
- (Not sure what you mean by the “no-hyphen crowd”)
- “Game One”…not “Game 1″
- On NBA positions, use digits: “Paul Pierce can play the 2 or the 3″
The justifications:
The AP style grew out of the newspaper business, where there’s a financial incentive to save column space by using digits instead of spelling out numbers in “three-pointer” and “Game One.” That incentive doesn’t exist in the vast infinitude of cyberspace…and so we’re free to go with the aesthetically-pleasing spell-it-out option.
NBA positions are an exception, for clarity’s sake more than anything else. A reader reading quickly might be trip over “plays the one.” “Plays the 1,” on the other hand, makes it obvious that we’re talking about a point guard.
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Emily said on May 22, 2008 1:30 pm
In the same vein, Formula One instead of Formula 1?
# Ryan Alberti said on May 22, 2008 2:56 pm
That’s a trickier one–lots of conflicting standards in the mainstream media. B/R goes with “Formula One” (and “F1″ when abbreviated).
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Tim said on May 24, 2008 8:02 pm
Regarding the “no-hyphen crowd,” see your previous message to the one I posted. (Basically, why not hyphenate the term at-bat? I realize the insignificance of the matter; just curious.)
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Ryan Alberti said on May 25, 2008 3:41 pm
Ahh, thanks for clarifying.
Having done a little more research, I think this is a better standard:
“At bat” (two words, no hyphen) when the phrase is used as an adverb: “Alex Rodriguez is up at bat.”
“At-bat” (hyphenated) when the phrase is used as noun: “Alex Rodriguez had a great at-bat.”
My apologies for the confusion–and thanks for your analness. Please continue to grill me whenever it’s appropriate; we’ll all be better for it in the long run.
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Tim said on May 28, 2008 6:20 am
Thanks — the fewer things I have to switch in my mind when here opposed to what I learned in the AP Style Bible, the better.
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Ryan Alberti said on May 28, 2008 3:57 pm
Fair enough. I’ll try to keep the anti-AP crusaderism to a minimum in the future.
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Tim said on June 3, 2008 8:00 am
Arsenal is a team or Arsenal are a team?
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Ryan Alberti said on June 3, 2008 3:45 pm
“Aresenal ARE” a team if the writer says they are. We want to defer to writers whenever there’s a discrepancy between American and foreign syntax/style/spelling.
(P.S. Tim — Let’s keep these comments limited to spelling issues. Questions like the one above should be directed to Emily in the course of your training correspondence.)
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Tim said on June 4, 2008 7:39 am
Sorry… I had this bookmarked as a place to come with things not covered in the Style Appendix, forgetting the title.
Thanks for clearing it up, regardless.
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Ryan Alberti said on June 4, 2008 3:36 pm
No sweat–always happy to help.
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Dakota said on June 21, 2008 4:54 pm
What about “Web site”. AP does it that way but i have seen it “website”, “Website”, and “web site” and I am not sure which you want us using here. I personally like Web site, but that may be my newspaper AP bias speaking.
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Ryan Alberti said on June 21, 2008 5:46 pm
We’ll give the nod to the AP here, so…
“Web site” (two words, “Web” capitalized)
While we’re on the subject…
“Web page,” “Web,” and “Internet” (all beginning with capitals) are the accepted standards.
In general, I’m all for maintaining high standards of spelling, punctuation and grammar (see my bio on B/R) but I have a problem with the list on here.
Here in the UK for example, the convention is ‘pre-season’. We all know how some spellings differ across the Atlantic and I’m not going to get into that too much because it’s quite an emotive issue - as this comment list testifies.
It does strike me as a little intolerant to insist on americanised (note the ’s’ not the ‘z’) versions from all your contributors. I generally ignore spell-checkers because my own standards are far higher than Microsoft’s but I do accept the ever-present threat of the typo.
I just wanted to say I’m going to continue to spell the Queen’s English according to convention here in the UK and I’ll refer to this thread entry if my ‘labours’ become edited otherwise.
Fair enough, Paul.
To clarify, B/R does NOT impose American English on its users. Here’s the relevant passage from our Editor’s Cheat Sheet:
When editing articles by non-American authors, always defer to variant spellings of English words. For example, an article from a British author about his “favourite” football club is acceptable; we shouldn’t revise the spelling to “favorite.”
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“Pre-season” is less a cultural variant than an aesthetic one. Some American writers use “pre-season” too—but we omit the hyphen and make it all one word. That said, I think everyone will survive if you continue to do it your own way.
— Ryan
How would you spell world wide when referring to a “world wide event”?
World-wide, worldwide, or world wide.
References to US? The AP says to refer to all references of United States as U.S.
Two good questions, Ryan.
“Worldwide” is the correct construction in the former case. The one exception is “World Wide Web,” which is conventionally presented as three separate words.
On the second point, I’ll defer to the AP…so “U.S.” is the correct construction. If nothing else, US Weekly readers will be grateful for the distinction.
— Ryan
How would you use “teammate”?
As you have it: one word, no hyphens. “Teammate.”
Keep the questions coming,
Ryan
Would you capitalize Australian Rules Football like so?
Nope—”Australian rules football” is the proper construction.
Think of it like any other sport: You wouldn’t capitalize “baseball,” and so you shouldn’t capitalize “Australian rules football.” You should, however, capitalize “Australian Football League”…in the same way you’d capitalize “Major League Baseball”…because both are official governing bodies.
— Ryan
left-handed or lefthanded? How about lefthander?
All-Americans? Redshirt or Red-shirt?
Good questions here. To answer them in order…
- The hyphen is correct in both “left-handed” and “left-hander.”
- “All-Americans” is correct.
- “Redshirt” is one word, no hyphen.
— Ryan
How about downfield or upfield same as frontcourt and backcourt? Dashes in any of the following…
jumpshot?
undrafted?
touchback?
And when indicating time… 8 pm EST? 8 o’clock? 8 PM? eight o’clock?
All good questions. To answer them one at a time…
- “jump shot” (two words, no hyphen)
- “undrafted” (one word)
- “touchback” (one word)
- “8:00 PM EST” during non-daylight saving time (November-March); “8:00 PM EDT” during daylight saving time (Note that “PM” is capitalized.)
(One other note on time: If a writer chooses to spell out “eight o’clock” for rhetorical effect, it should be allowed to stand. In other words, “It was eight o’clock when the trouble began” should not be revised to read, “It was 8:00 PM EDT when the trouble began.”)
Keep ‘em coming…
— Ryan
Interleague play or inter-league play?
“Interleague” play (one word, no hyphen).
— Ryan
Hey Ryan,
I have a question about the word warmups. I’ve seen it with no spaces (like that) or with a hyphen, warm-ups. What is the correct construction?
Oh Ryan, one more thing. I have a suggestion for changing the B/R Style Guide with regards to the construction of weeks during football season. On ESPN, USA Today, the Washington Post and every other daily newspaper they use the following construction: Week 2 (Uppercase Week with the arabic numeral, even for numbers 1-9). I think the current B/R style guide Week One, Week Two, and so forth looks weird and doesn’t follow the normal conventions used by every other major print publication. Let me know what you think because I think it’s something that could improve the site.
Sorry for the delayed response here, Eric.
To answer your question, “warm-up” (with the hyphen) is correct.
Regarding the “Week Two” v. “Week 2″ issue:
I appreciate your input, and will keep it in mind going forward. For now, though, we’ll stick with our current standard (”Week Two”). Thanks in advance for your cooperation and understanding.
What about game plan? I see why it would make sense to be two words in that scenario, but I’ve heard coaches use it as a verb in the past tense, which means it would have to be “game planned” or “gameplanned.” Is it two words, hyphenated or just one big jumble?
Good question here, Dan.
As a noun, “game plan” is two words, without a hyphen. As a verb, it’s one hyphenated word—e.g. “We won because we game-planned well.”
— Ryan
What about wide-out or stand-out?
Is Wild Card capitalized only when explicitly referring to a league’s extra playoff team (like, “AL Wild Card,” “AFC Wild Card”)? Is it capitalized always?
Responding to Ruth:
“Wideout” and “standout” are both correct (one word, no hyphen).
Responding to Dan:
“Wild card” is a tricky one. To wit…
You’re correct that it should be capitalized when used as a NOUN referring to a specific playoff team (e.g. “The Giants are the National League Wild Card”). It should also be capitalized when used as an ADJECTIVE referring to playoff games in the NFL (e.g. “the Wild Card Round”; “the Wild Card Game”; “Wild Card Weekend”).
It should not be capitalized, though, when used as an ADJECTIVE referring to teams or playoff races (e.g. “the Giants are in the hunt for a wild-card spot”; “the Giants are in the thick of the wild-card race”). (Note also the hyphen when used as an adjective.)
Hopefully that’s all clear. We’re obviously into some pretty arcane details here, but I appreciate your diligence in doing the little things right.
What’s the ruling on capitalization for football play packages like “nickel,” “dime,” and “quarter?”
Another good question here, Dan.
If we’re talking about generic packages and schemes, terms like “nickel,” “dime,” and “quarter” (and “prevent,” for that matter) should all be lower-case.
If, however, we’re talking about a specific defense—e.g. “Pittsburgh’s vaunted Cover 2″—the name of the defense should be capitalized.
I realize that’s another blurry distinction…so if you ever have further questions, please don’t hesitate to raise them.
— Ryan
What’s the policy on “a-game,” as in, “The Steelers said they’re going to bring their A-game on Sunday”? I’ve seen it variously as “A” game, A-game, and “A-game.”
[A-game] is correct.
(Capital A with the hyphen; no quotation marks around the A. In other words, ““The Steelers said they’re going to bring their A-game on Sunday” is correct.)
Keep ‘em coming,
Ryan
As an intern, I have consulted my trainer on many of these questions. She has given me great answers, but suggested that I share the questions here. I wanted to let Ryan tackle them as well!
Thanks!
I would like to know the proper styles for the following examples:
1. “fourth-and-5″?
2. “four-game” suspension?
3. European verbs, as in reference to the cricket team Aresnal…”Aresnal are a great team”? Doesn’t sound right, but I want to respect the differences between European and American grammar…
4. “.vs”, when in a title? Packers vs. Cowboys, or Packers Vs. Cowboys?
5. The pound signs in: #2 slot WR? or #5 starter?
6. 2nd half, or second half?
7. 1st round draft pick, or first round draft pick? Or something else?
8. The hyphen in: two-point conversion?
9. The seemingly possessive apostrophe in: QB’s or WR’s. Shouldn’t it just be QBs and WRs?
10. I know that “midseason” is proper, but what about “mid-year”?
11. The usage of instant-messaging lingo: I actually saw a few BTWs within articles. I changed them to “By the way,” … Suggestions?
Thanks for sharing these, Karen. To address them one at a time…
1. “4th-and-5″ is correct. (This one is in the Style Guide:http://bleacherreport.com/pages/styleguide#numbers)
2. “Four-game suspension” is correct.
3. “Arsenal are a great team” is correct. European writers generally consider nominally singular team names (e.g. “Arsenal”) to be plural nouns—and, as you note, we want to defer to the differences between European and American grammar.
4. “vs.” should not be capitalized in a headline.
5. Pound signs are never appropriate; “No.” is the preferred construction. (This one is also in the Style Guide: http://bleacherreport.com/pages/styleguide#numbers)
6. “second half”
7. “first-round pick” (with the hyphen)
8. “two-point conversion” (with the hyphen)
9. “QBs” and “WRs” (no apostrophe)
10. “midyear” (There’s some dispute on this one, but we’ll go without the hyphen for the sake of consistency.)
11. All instant-messaging lingo should be removed from articles. So, yes, “BTW” should always be changed to “by the way.”
Did a player re-sign with a team or resign with a team?
Also, “D-backs” or “D-Backs?”
Good questions, Dan. To answer both of them in a single reply…
- A successful player “re-signs” with a team. A failed manager, on the other hand, might “resign” from his position.
- If we’re talking about defensive backs, “D-backs” (capital D, lowercase b) is correct. If we’re talking about the Arizona Diamondbacks, “D-Backs” (capital D, capital B) is correct.
- Sometimes I see the “st” or “rd” of “21st” or “23rd” in superscript. It may have been copied and pasted from a word processor. Should this be changed to regular case?
- In a case like this, “…led to Tennessee scoring the first TD of the season vs. Florida.” - Is “vs.” correct or should it be spelled out?
- double team? double-team?
- playmaker? play maker?
Thanks!
Good questions, Karen. To answer them one at a time…
1. As noted in the Style Guide, superscript is never appropriate on B/R. So…yes, it should always be changed to regular case.
2. The abbreviation “vs.” should only be used in headlines and game lists—never in regular sentences. So…you should revise the sentence you cite to read “against Florida.”
3. “Double-team” (two words with a hyphen) is correct.
4. “Playmaker” (one word, no hyphen) is correct.
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Going forward, please be sure to limit your responses in this thread to questions about spelling, hyphenation, and capitalization. All Style questions (like your first two questions here) should be routed through the appropriate channels.
I was keeping a running list of questions last night and forgot to hash out which ones belong where. I pasted them all here. I’ll be sure to put them in the right place next time! Thanks for the answers, Ryan!
No sweat, Karen—I know firsthand how confusing it can be to navigate our various question forums. In any event, I’m glad the answers were helpful.
Leadoff (hitter), lead-off, or lead off?
“Leadoff” (one word, no hyphen) is correct as an adjective. But “lead off” (two words, no hyphen) is correct as a verb. So…
The [leadoff] hitter is due to [lead off] the top of the first inning.
Is “champions” capitalized when used with a modifier (”Stanley Cup Champions,” “World Series Champions,” etc.)?
Good thought, Dan…but no, “champions” is not capitalized when used with a modifier.
The Oakland A’s, for example, were the “1989 World Series champions.” That season, they won the “World Series championship.”
“Endzone,” “end-zone,” or “end zone?”
The correct construction is “end zone” (two words, no hyphen, no capitalization).
at-bat or at bat
As noted in the comment thread above…
“At bat” (two words, no hyphen) when the phrase is used as an adverb: “Alex Rodriguez is up at bat.”
“At-bat” (hyphenated) when the phrase is used as noun: “Alex Rodriguez had a great at-bat.”
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Before you ask a question about a particular word, always use the Firefox “Find” feature (Command-F) to search the existing thread. Hopefully that technique makes everyone’s life a little easier.
Is the proper method for shortening “offensive line” o-line, O-line, or something else?
The proper construction is “O-line” (capital “O” with a hyphen). The same form applies to D-line, D-coordinator, O-coordinator, etc.
play-caller or play caller. I’ve seen both in published works.
“Play-caller” (two words with a hyphen) is the correct construction. The same form applies to “play-calling.”
Note that the rule for “play-caller” is different from the rule for “playmaker” (one word, no hyphen) identified in the discussion thread above.
What should we do about baserunner vs. base runner, or even base-runner?
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