Argh! How could the Associated Press do this?!

I am lamenting that AP has decreed it acceptable to use over to mean more than.

I’m sorry but that is wrong. That message was drilled into me in all of my journalism and English classes. The professors taught me that over is a preposition and that more than has a numerical value.

And, okay, I admit a certain smugness years later when as an editor I could point out that the writer was using over incorrectly.

I know exactly what happened. The AP conceded that it could no longer stop others from using over.

Just because everyone uses a word incorrectly or dumbs it down doesn’t mean that we need to change it.

I’m not giving up the good fight. Not more than my dead body!