Customer Reviews

Wired Style: Principles of English Usage in the Digital Age

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

As a copy editor, I have to try to find a consistent spelling for terms that appear regularly, some of which are not yet in the dictionary. In 1998 I bought the 1996 hardcover version of this book, thinking it would fill in the gaps dictionaries and other stylebooks have left regarding how to consistently spell "website," "webpage," "email," "e-commerce," "Internet," "intranet," etc. It was the only book I saw on the subject back then. The capitalization of "Internet" makes some sense, but capitalizing "Web site" and making it two words does not really, especially since in the 1999 revised soft cover version they add the possibilities of lowercased, unhyphenated single words like "webzine" and "webmaster" (not Webmaster, etc.). The insistence on not hyphenating "email" but hyphenating "e-commerce" ends up making an article I edited look ridiculously inconsistent. I had "Web site," "intranet," "Internet," "email," "e-commerce" and other terms all appearing in the same story. And let's face it, everyone spells it "website" in email (e-mail?) except the authors of this stylebook. I find it useless and hope to find a better stylebook for internet and other techno-specific terms that considers the needs of copy editors.

Thank goodness for the book's index re: finding what I was looking for though!

If you're not careful, reading this book could make you feel pretty hip, pretty web-savvy, and maybe even a little superior; but you might feel a little dirty when it's all over.

First off, and most importantly, Wired Style isn't a style book. Strunk & White for the web, it ain't. That book hasn't been written yet. Wired Style is certainly written in the Wired style, but it provides mostly definitions and few examples of usage.

Wired Style *is* funny sometimes, witty sometimes and condescending often. It may help you learn a fair bit about the web. I could even say it's an engaging read. But it's not gonna help you become a better writer, which is what style guides are intended to do. A better-informed writer? OK.

So, essentially, Wired Style is, you know, it's pretty snazzy, rad, awesome, boss. It's da bomb. It's way cool. (Sorry, I guess you get the point.) Which means it'll sound pretty out-dated within a few years. But it makes for a light, fun, superiority complex-inducing read right now.

For those concerned with "e-mail" versus "email," "web site" versus "website" and other similar dilemmas, just strive for consistency in your own writing. Also, hyphens usually disappear over time, so if you're typing "email" instead of "e-mail," you're just ahead of the curve; we'll probably all be writing it that way eventually.

I bought this book from Amazon.com on the advice of a good friend who writes technical support manuals for a software company; I figured it was a sure bet. I wish now that I had read the reviews before I clicked "Add this to your shopping cart."

What a *perfect* example of style over substance -- and a style attempting to imitate that of _The Chicago Manual of Style_, at that (nice touch with the orange cover, kids...). This is really nothing more than a glorified glossary of terms with kicky packaging and hard-to-read pages. It's a magazine article about Internet/Web jargon on both steroids *and* acid. I expected much more in terms of content and guidance and I was sorely disappointed. I hope Amazon.com's return policy is as straightforward as it seems.

Having read through the first edition, I looked forward to the next, which was supposed to be organized like a real style guide (read: The AP Stylebook and Libel Manual) and less like an in-your-face, smarmy declaration of war against English. At least the editors of Wired accomplished that much, renaming some key writing principles like "Screw the Rules" with "Be Irreverent."

But you really have to wonder about a style guide which quotes Entertainment Weekly -- that's right, Entertainment Weekly, that standard bearer of educational enlightenment -- not once, but TWICE on its back cover. This means that the publishers had a hard time coming up with complementary quotes to fill in the space. I work as a copywriter for a book publisher, and to quote the same publication twice on the same cover is simply bad, bad form -- only the most desperate of publishers do so.

Little wonder why EW reviewed this book -- after all, Wired Style is SO funny, like the little jab it takes at hackers when defining "Trojan Horse":

"The work of dark-side hackers. A seemingly innocuous program that hides a malicious virus.... the word is proof that hackers read the classics."

Ha. Ha. Isn't that smart? Because we all thought hackers hadn't read the classics, and wouldn't know what a Trojan Horse is. You'd never find this kind of "humor," this smartalecky take on English usage, in the New York Times Manual of Style and Usage.

It IS useful to have an guide to help explain such terms as "Trojan Horse," "Watermark," and "dpi" in context of the Web and computers (thus the two stars), but Wired Style has a long way to go before it can compare to the authoritative works such as the NYT and AP guides -- which do not, despite Wired Style's continued claim in both editions of their guide, force writers to call Bill Gates "William H. Gates III, chairman of Microsoft Corporation." (This claim is based on a general rule for identifying people who are not immediately recognizable to the general public -- Bill Gates doesn't qualify. The editors at Wired really should know better.)

Think of "Wired Style" as the 'Chicago Manual of Style' (well, sort of) as stated by Newsweek back in 1999 when this book first came out, and you probably by now can realize where the fundamental problem of the book is. While it does come accross as a bit pompous at times, indeed, the biggest issue it has is the fact that it hasn't been updated since its first edition, five years ago, an entire lifetime by Internet standards. As a result, several ubiquitous terms that you run into everywhere today are missing: blog, RSS, CSS, XHTML, flat panel, and the list goes on and on. So, as much as they ditch the more conservative AP Stylebook, it is not that much better as a tool for editors/writers working in the "digital age", so I don't see much of a point in buying it at this point any more.

"SIGGRAPH" is "Siggraph" because the folks at WIRED find the offical ACM acronym too something. ditto "Wais" and "Arpanet".

The section titles are effectively useless. Do I look up "VDT" under "Transcend the Technical" or "Anticipate the Future"?

I'm glad my company paid for this book, otherwise I'd want a refund. I just hope we don't adopt it as a style manual.

Wired Style is perfect for people who don't know how to write about computers and the Internet and don't care if they know how to write about computers and the Internet.

Get a good glossary of computer terms and a decent style manual (AP, UPI, whatever) and you'll be much happier.

This is THE worst book of all time. Half of the definitions are useless (ie. nintendo, game, etc). The other half are mostly all poorly defined. Even if you wanted to find a definition for something it would be impossible because for some reason they group certain terms into lots of different chapters so you never know where something is, like what section would crt be in, Be Elite, Screw the Rules, G Gloabl. Trust me and the other people that have written about this book, don't buy it ever. Buy a good computer dictionary and your set (ie. Dictionary of Internet and Computer Terms ($15) or Cyber Dictionary ($22) or anything except for Wired Style, I encourage anyone who has seen this book to write about how poor this book is and people that don't believe us or are going to buy it, go to your library and rent it first and you'll see

Anyone who thinks this book is a "style manual" has clearly never used one. A more accurate description would be a glossary, you know, the kind which appears in the back of old textbooks and defines things you already knew. Some of the acronyms which have found their way into this book would be interesting if you were doing a term paper on obsolete technical terms. Big disappointment all around

I got an offer to buy the book from one of the 'book of the month' clubs that I'm a member of. A book titled 'Manual of Style' coming from Wired raised my antennas. So I first checked it at the library. I'm glad I did. It is a perfectly useless book. There Wired: See I used the word 'perfectly' in the review of your book.

I think they should be tried for swindling people with this trash. It has no content, only packaging and the gibberish from the foul mouth of a bunch of adolescent kids.

This is the apotheosis of form triumphing over content. Put it in a slip cover! Print it on lime green paper! Give it one of those ring bindings! Oh...there's nothing to put in the book to make it worth buying...Never Mind!!!! Worse than all the very accurate criticisms already listed here, is the fact that this book isn't as desperately needed as Wired tries to make you think. Other style manuals are working feverishly to keep up with the challenges of the Web, and many of them are doing a good job. And please, Wired, can't the Web just be a great tool and a cool thing? Does it have to be a turning point for language, civilization, writing, the universe?