The Borg are in charge over at the AP, it seems. The AP Stylebook has just announced a change: over is now interchangeable with more than in reference to numbers.

That is,

There are more than five dozen dandelions blooming in my backyard …

can now be stated as

There are over five dozen dandelions blooming in my backyard.

It’s been reported that at the national conference of the American Copy Editor’s Society, convening in Las Vegas on the day of the announcement, there was an audible gasp from the crowd.

I’ll admit when I reread the second dandelion sentence above, I cringed a little. I like the old distinction; I’m a fan of elegant writing, writing that says what it means and means what it says. But it’s not like we couldn’t see this coming, right? When an idiom passes into popular use, eventually it will be sanctified as proper use.

Take criterion/criteria, for example. Some months ago, I used this line in a blog post:

Their criteria for what constitutes a good book is different than mine, that’s all.

And a friend of mine called me on it. “Their criteria for what constitutes a good book *are* different from yours, no?” she asked. I probably should have used are to avoid any head-scratching moments like this one. Confusion is never good. However, this is what my fave dictionary* says about it:

Usage Discussion of CRITERION:

The plural criteria has been used as a singular for nearly half a century. **

<Let me now return to the third criteria . — Richard M. Nixon, televised address, 20 Apr. 1970>

< … that really is the criteria … — Burt Lance, Senate hearings, 15–16 Sept. 1977>

<One criteria for projects I choose is that they be about relationships … — Jack Lemmon, quoted in TV Guide, 28 Feb. 1998>
<His supporters stated that Parcells’ talent as a coach is Hall of Fame caliber and that should be the main criteria . — Mike Freeman, New York Times, 3 Feb. 2002>

Many of our examples are taken from speech or from reported speech, but singular criteria is not so very uncommon in edited prose.

<The bottom line is: If you’ve been toiling in the GOP vineyard for years, you’ve fulfilled the first criteria of the RNC job—developing and promoting the Republican party’s ideas and candidates. — Jim Geraghty, National Review, 15 Dec. 2008>
Its use both in speech and writing seems to be increasing. Only time will tell whether it will reach the unquestioned acceptability of agenda.

So this is one of those things where there’s right—the official definition is still criterion (singular) and criteria (plural)—and then there’s how it’s used in the real world.

And that’s where the AP is headed with over/more than.

I “heard” it on Twitter the morning of the announcement. Predictably, the tweets were all a-flappin’—although I loved this one from @MikeShor: “More than my dead body!” As it turns out, Shor is an economics professor, so I can understand his ire, though we should clarify that more than is still correct. It’s just that over is also correct now, according to the Associated Press.

Me, I’m governed by the Chicago Manual of Style, which has been silent regarding this change and still dictates the use of more than when referring to numbers. So I have my marching orders.

For now. 🙂

(IMPORTANT UPDATE: My marching orders actually come from my publishing clients, who prefer more than. CMOS is OK with over. Thanks to my reader Cheryl Nicchitta who pointed out that the current edition of CMOS—and who knows how many before—says the phrases are equivalent.)

* I use a paid subscription version of the Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary, from which I transcribed this. ©2014

** And, it should be noted, this is my personal half-century.

Tweet: When an idiom passes into popular use, eventually it will be sanctified as proper use.
Tweet: More than is still correct. It’s just that over is also correct now, according to the AP.

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