National Geographic Society
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Years ago I attended a grammar workshop that discussed the use of “they” as a neutral substitute for the more gender-specific singular pronouns “she” and “he.” There were few editors at that meeting comfortable with using “they” in a singular sense in order to avoid saying “she or he.” I wonder what that same group would say today.
One of the joys of my job, which involves reading many, many proofs of National Geographic, is that I’m always learning. Today the new topic is half-high dots, also known as middle dots or raised dots, a mark akin to a period but placed in the vertical midpoint of a line of type. For some reason its name seems happy and makes me want to sing.
Just why am I now consumed with this symbol? In the March issue of National Geographic, we used the abbreviation kWh for kilowatt-hour, and received a challenge from a reader who told us that to be scientifically correct we should have written the term kW·h. (See that half-high dot?) However, that rendition does not agree with Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, our primary guide for spelling, which lists kWh.
We receive a lot of feedback—both positive and negative—from readers all over the world each month. Last December’s article “King Herod Revealed,” in particular, provoked a flurry of emails, mostly from readers objecting to the claim: “Herod is best known for slaughtering every male infant in Bethlehem in an attempt to kill Jesus. He is almost certainly innocent of this crime.” (See the Letters section in the April issue for a sampling of letters and a clarification.)
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