As part of the paper’s Talk to the Newsroom series, Director of Copy Desks Merill Perlman is fielding questions this week about copy editing at The Times. Fortunately, that is like our favorite topic! Where do we begin?

To: asktheeditors@nytimes.com

Ms. Perlman,

I noticed around October of last year that The Times’s standard for apostrophe use in plurals changed. Most noticeable to me had been the frequent appearance of “New DVD’s” on the paper’s Internet home page. I was relieved when this spelling gave way to the current “New DVDs,” a form I think is more correct, no worse in its appearance, and less confusing to a populace that struggles daily with correct use of the apostrophe.

How often do you make changes of this magnitude to your house style, and how do you resolve questions in which there is no consensus? As much as I like to imagine newsroom battles pitting one stack of reference books against another, perhaps the reality is less exciting.

Yours,
Doctor Barnett