Newspapers devise style guides for two reasons: to steer writers and editors through the trickier waters of the English language and to attempt (sometimes in vain) to apply some consistency in grammar, punctuation and spelling across the many thousands of articles published each year.
It's a useful tool, but there is always the danger that, over time, a manual of sensible advice mutates into a tome of holy writ, its strictures applied blindly, leading to confusion – the very opposite of the guide's intended purpose.
Take, for instance, the term "actor". When the Observer and the Guardian published their new joint style guide last year, this clause appeared: "Use for both male and female actors; do not use actress except when in name of award, eg Oscar for best actress."
It was the guide's view that "actress comes into the same category as authoress, comedienne, manageress, 'lady doctor', 'male nurse' and similar obsolete terms that date from a time when professions were largely the preserve of one sex (usually men). As Whoopi Goldberg put it in an interview with the paper: 'An actress can only play a woman. I'm an actor – I can play anything.'
"There is normally no need to differentiate between the sexes – and if there is, the words male and female are perfectly adequate: Lady Gaga won a Brit in 2010 for best international female artist, not artiste, chanteuse, or songstress.
"As always, use common sense: a piece about the late film director Carlo Ponti was edited to say that in his early career he was 'already a man with a good eye for pretty actors...' As the Guardian's readers' editor pointed out in the subsequent clarification: 'This was one of those occasions when the word "actresses" might have been used.'"
Amen to that, but it would seem that we are not applying the term actor consistently and this has led, curiously, to an accusation of ageism.
"Dear sir (probably!)," began a letter to our magazine editor. "You referred to the very feminine Jane Lynch as an 'actor' last week. I think I have worked out why you call some female thespians 'actors' and some 'actresses'. In recent months you and the Guardian have referred to Natasha McElhone and Rinko Kikuchi as actresses and Maureen Lipman and Jane Lynch as actors. The only difference is that the former are 41 and 30 respectively and the latter are 65 and 51 respectively. Does this mean that you believe that an actress becomes an actor after the age of 41?
"I have never known you to call a princess a prince or a duchess a duke. Why can you not give women the dignity that our separate identity deserves rather than treating some of us as men?"
Our style guide editor responded: "Most of the impetus for adopting this style came from younger female actors and we certainly do not have a policy of applying it only to older ones. Most female actors these days, young and old, do not see why acting should be treated differently from medicine or any other profession. We described Harriet Walter as one of our greatest actors. Calling her one of our greatest actresses is not the same thing at all and, I would argue, a much greater affront to her dignity."
I see his point about leaders in a profession, but while I respect him and think his meticulous manual would be a handsome and useful addition to any bookshelf, I'm not sure I entirely agree with him on this one. Being obliged to describe someone as a "female actor" suggests that we still consider the term actor to be fundamentally male, so why not keep the unambiguous "actress"?
Better still, why not leave it up to writers and subeditors to decide which would be the most appropriate term according to context, rather than prescribing what should appear?
Tellingly, the performers' union Equity has no policy on this. "We don't feel there is a consensus," said a spokesman. "In fact, the subject divides the profession."
theguardian.com/styleguide
reader@observer.co.uk