I had been in a slight copyeditor panic wondering why "Walmart" was popping up in large letters in new commercials for the store giant instead of the typical "Wal-Mart" spelling. I keep a standard style sheet to use for all my editing, and I list certain trade names there, like Pop-Tarts, La-Z-Boy, and Kmart. I thought my entry for Wal-Mart was safe. Then all of a sudden, this happens.

I checked the Wal-Mart Web site a while ago, and the legal babble still said "Wal-Mart" so I figured I would keep going with that. This week on one of my Listservs, someone brought up this same question, and basically the consensus was that their PR material might use "Walmart" but if they legally are registered as "Wal-Mart" then this is correct. But then another person pointed out a BusinessWeek article, which got me searching for other items, and I found these posts:

* Under Consideration

* The Writing on the Wal
* Walmart press release

So from now on, I will be using "Walmart" to match their intentions.

Farewell, hyphen. You go the way of the dodo, as so many others have:

e-mail to email, bumble-bee to bumblebee, to-morrow to tomorrow ...

P.S. ... In the opening graphic I would not use a hyphen between "nearly" and "departed," but of course I use APA style every day, and so this is how I think!!