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Handle with care: AP style drops the hyphen in healthcare, childcare and daycare

Poynter · Matthew Crowley · last updated

At the ACES: The Society for Editing conference, editors cheered — and groaned — as the AP Stylebook announced one of its most anticipated changes

The bombshells still explode. No more hyphen in email (Phoenix, 2011). Over is allowed, as a synonym for “more than” (Las Vegas, 2014). Most hyphens are gone after prefixes (San Diego, 2024). Now, the Associated Press Stylebook has again sparked tremors, shaking copy editors, style geeks and writers everywhere.

Atlanta, 2026: Healthcare, now fused into a single word, along with childcare and daycare.

Discuss.

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