[View Point] Would a bug by any other spelling be as voracious?

Last November, the AP Stylebook — the guide newspapers and magazines follow for punctuation, spelling and other “style” issues — decreed the pest that’s been making national headlines the past few years, the one that clandestinely bites people while they sleep, the one that’s closed fancy hotels and movie theaters and everywhere in between, is spelled “bedbug.” What?

The notation by AP caused quite a conversation online, most of which supported the one-word spelling. “The rule about inserting spaces in insect common names seems to be a modern creation,” wrote Michael Quinion at www.worldwidewords.org. “It’s highly unlikely ever to affect the usual spelling of bedbug, since the tendency in modern English is to amalgamate multi-word terms into single words, not split them apart. The spelling has long since become standard for everybody except professional entomologists.”

Additionally, in the “comments” section of an August 2010 New York Times blog about bed bugs, a reader wrote the following: “I understand that entymologists (sic) refer to them as bed bugs (2 words) not bedbugs, as the author of this article uses. Apparently if the animal is an actual bug, it should be 2 words. Dragonfly is an example of an insect that is not really a fly, so they merge it into one word.”

The blog’s author replied: “Yes we have heard about this from a few readers. The Webster’s New World College Dictionary, which is our definitive source when something’s not specifically addressed by the NYT stylebook, spells it as one word. So for now, it’s bedbugs in the New York Times. But I agree the argument for bedbugs as two words is compelling.”

It strikes me as odd when I see the word spelled “bedbug” because I’ve been trained to write it as two. A number of years ago I attended a meeting where I first became aware there was a one-word vs. two-word spelling issue. Mike Potter from the University of Kentucky told attendees in order to find the university’s bed bug information online, PMPs would have to Google “bed bug as two words.” Who knew a space in a word would matter in Google’s rankings?

For years, the pest management industry has spelled the common name of Cimex lectularius Linnaeus as “bed bug” — two words. But then a non-entomological group says “bedbug” and we all have to follow? I think not. I was curious about this mini debate and asked both Potter and Jim Fredericks, NPMA’s director of technical services, for their thoughts.

Potter told me he wrote in 2008, “The modern scientific designation is two words although older writings often used one word. The entomological rule of thumb in the common naming of insects is to use two words if the insect truly resides within that hierarchal order of classification, and one word if it does not (e.g., bed bugs and stink bugs are considered true bugs in the order Hemiptera, whereas neither a butterfly or dragonfly are true flies in the order Diptera).

“That said, the news media seems to go for simplicity, coupled with the fact that they could probably give a hoot about proper scientific nomenclature according to entomologists!” he added. 
  
“The term ‘bug’ in popular use could mean any creepy critter or even a pathogen (think ‘flu bug’),” Fredericks added. He also directed me to the Entomological Society of America’s rules governing common names (see rule #4 at www.entsoc.org/use-and-submission-common-names).

On Jan. 12, Tom Fasulo, an extension entomologist at the University of Florida, sent his daily Pest Alert e-mail blast and reported msnbc.msn.com ran an article titled “‘Pervasive’ bedbug woes in U.S., survey finds.” “1 in 5 Americans has been infested or knows someone who has,” the article said. “The article also proves, once again, that 4.9 out of 5 American journalists, as well as many others who should know better, do not know that on this side of the Atlantic ‘bed bug’ is spelled as two words,” Fasulo wrote.

Well this 0.1 of a journalist knows the difference. And as a result, unless it’s a trademarked product name, you’ll see it spelled “bed bug” in PCT. There are lots of chances to see “bed bug” in this month’s Bed Bug Supplement (page 109). We hope there are lots of take-away (or takeaway?) tips in PCT’s 50-page supplement dedicated to our favorite “two-word” bug. 

The author is editor of PCT magazine.