After the Associated Press Stylebook made the startling decision in April to shift from “health care” to “healthcare,” it set off a fierce debate not only in the STAT newsroom, where we use a lightly modified version of AP style, but among our readers.
As STAT’s director of editorial operations and a longtime copy editor, I consulted with my colleagues and also asked for readers’ help. The fight over a single space, which has raged for years, might look a little silly from the outside, and maybe it is. But it’s taken on perhaps outsize importance, and many people, including me, have strong feelings on the matter.