WXYZ AP Style

Wall Street

When the reference is to the entire complex of financial institutions in the area rather than the actual street itself, the Street is an acceptable short form.

war

Capitalize as part of the name of a specific conflict: the Afghanistan War, the Iraq War, the Civil War, the Cold War, the Korean War

warden

Capitalize as a formal title before a name

weapons

Be as specific as possible about the types of guns at issue in any given law or story.

Instead, seek specific and detailed information from authorities, such as a gun’s make, model, caliber and magazine capacity. For example, Authorities said the shooter used a Smith & Wesson M&P15 rifle or Authorities said the man used an AR-style semiautomatic rifle with a 30-round magazine.

weather terms

lowercase, use specific terms: El Nino, La Nina, cyclone, coastal waters, flash flood, degree-day,

weeklong, weekslong

weeklong, weekslong

weights

Use figures: The baby weighed 9 pounds, 7 ounces. She had a 9-pound, 7-ounce boy.

In agate listings, use abbreviations for some sports, such as lbs. for pounds and kg. for kilograms.

West, Western, west, western

Use West to describe the 13-state region as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau that is broken into two divisions.

Capitalize Western for the film and book genre and certain genres of music: Western swing. But lowercase in country-western to avoid mixed cases. Capitalize Old West when referring to the 19th-century American frontier.

Capitalize West and Western when referring to the cultural and political region constituting the Western Hemisphere and Europe.

for directions: west and western (lowercase)

Western Hemisphere

The continents of North and South America, and the islands near them.

frequent subdivisions: Caribbean, Central America, North America, South American, West Indies

West Point

Acceptable on second reference to the U.S. Military Academy.

whistleblower

someone who released information that led to a scandal or was not supposed to be shared

who’s, whose

Who's is a contraction for who is, not a possessive: Who's there?

Whose is the possessive: I do not know whose coat it is.

who, whom

Who is the pronoun used for references to human beings and to animals with a name. Write the person who is in charge, not the person that is in charge.

Who is grammatically the subject (never the object) of a sentence, clause or phrase: The woman who rented the room left the window open. Who is there?

Whom is used when someone is the object of a verb or preposition: The woman to whom the room was rented left the window open. Whom do you wish to see?

wildfires

Use square miles to describe the size of fires. The fire has burned nearly 4 1/2 square miles of hilly brush land. Use acres only when the fire is less than a square mile. When possible, be descriptive: The fire is the size of Denver.

wiretap, wiretapper

(n.) The verb forms: wiretap, wiretapped, wiretapping.

winter

only capitalized when apart of festival or special event, Brookings Winter Carnival, Winter Olympics

wintertime

one word

woman, women

woman is the singular version, use when referring to one female

women is the plural version, use when speaking about multiple females or a group

wordbook, workday, workforce, workout, workhorse, workplace, worksheet, workstation, workweek

all lowercase, no spaces

workers’ compensation

apostrophe goes after: s’

working class, working-class

working class (noun) describes the group. The family was apart of the working class.

working-class (adj.) is used as a modifier before a noun: Jack was a true working-class hero. Most working-class jobs require you to clock in and out.

World War I, World War II

use roman numerals and capitalize each word

worldwide

one word, lowercase

wrongdoing

one word, plural: wrongdoings

Xmas

do not use this abbreviation

X-ray

(n., v. and adj.) Use for both the photographic process and the rays themselves.

year-end

noun and adjectives

yearlong, yearslong

one word

year-round

adjective and adverb

years

When a phrase refers to a month and day within the current year, do not include the year: The hearing is scheduled for June 26. If the reference is to a past or future year, include the year and set it off with commas: Feb. 14, 2025, is the target date. Use an s without an apostrophe to indicate spans of decades or centuries: the 1890s, the 1800s.

Years are an exception to the general rule in numerals that a figure is not used to start a sentence: 2013 was a very good year.

Young Men’s Christian Association

The term the Y is acceptable in all references to the main organization, which has its headquarters in Chicago. Use YMCA when referring to a specific location: the YMCA of Greater Louisville.

YouTube

Video-sharing service owned by Google. It has helped promote videos ranging from educational to whimsical and made celebrities out of ordinary people.

yesterday

Use only in direct quotations and in phrases that do not refer to a specific day: Yesterday we were young.

Use the day of the week in other cases.

youth

Applicable from age 13 until 18th birthday. Use man or woman for people 18 and older.

Zika

Usage: the Zika virus or just Zika.

A virus that can cause severe birth defects if a pregnant woman becomes infected. Most people infected with the Zika virus don’t get sick

ZIP code

Use all-caps ZIP for Zone Improvement Plan, but always lowercase the word code.

Run the five digits together without a comma, and do not put a comma between the state name and the ZIP code: New York, NY 10020.

zip line

two words, not capitalized

zero, zeroes

most uses spell out the term (zero) rather than using the figure (0)