Whether it's a backpack, desk supplies, outfits for school, a dress for a wedding or a car from the dealer's lot, it's fun to get new things. The August transition from summer activities to an upcoming school year gives many of us an extra reason to acquire the latest styles.

A couple of weeks ago I got in on having the latest, as two new stylebooks arrived within a few days of each other. Actually, I got three, but one was a duplicate, so I sent it back. I thought the mistake was funny, partly because the book's subtitle included the phrase "the Many Things That Can Go Wrong."

Another mixed-up aspect was that I'd been waiting for one book order since spring, but the book that arrived first wasn't scheduled for publication until August. I wasn't looking for that one yet in July, much less two of them.

I did receive a publisher’s shipment early in May, and there was a new book in the package, but the copyright said 1998. I already had a book like that to use. I didn’t know about their change in schedule until later, but obviously they couldn’t send me something in May that wasn't printed until June. In any case, I wanted the edition with a 2000 copyright ― the very latest.

I haven't come close to mastering everything in the older stylebooks yet, but a new book has a special appeal, and it's hard to ignore a copy with a cover that’s almost fluorescent. With the arrival of the new books came renewed interest in the subject matter.

I suppose stylebooks for writing are conservative by nature, since their purpose is to help maintain uniformity in language. People can get into impassioned arguments about differences of opinion in such matters, but the discussions I've read in the latest editions have been entertaining as well as informative. For the former, there's "Lapsing Into a Comma," by a copy editor for the Washington Post. For comprehensive coverage, there's the official stylebook of the Associated Press.

I was happy to see on the cover that the AP stylebook is "Fully Revised and Updated with a new Internet Guide and Glossary." Because of the increasing popularity of the Internet, I thought two years might make a significant difference in what's considered standard usage for writing about related topics. That’s why having the latest style information was important to me.

Though some of the same material was contained in the '98 edition, the special section is a new arrangement. It includes dot-com as an informal adjective. Another entry lists e-book, e-business and e-commerce along with e-mail.

(Public opinion tends to remove the hyphen for the shortened form of electronic mail, but the original question was whether or not to capitalize the e. The choice of the hyphenated version is related to many earlier examples, such as A-bomb, A-frame, I-beam and T-shirt.)

First-letter capitalization is considered standard for Internet, addresses such as Barnesandnoble.com, World Wide Web, the Web, Web page and Web site. (One author remarks, "A web site is where flies go to die.") Although it's popular to merge compound nouns, neither of the newest stylebooks combines Web site or home page. The entry for cyberspace suggests avoiding most of the "cutesy coinages" with the same prefix.

As no expert in computer matters, I used to think that I should simply follow the way the experts write their specialized terms, but there are variations from person to person, and the usage is continually developing. Besides, most specialties have their own jargon ― an insider language ― which isn't necessarily how the same material is presented in standard writing for the general public.

The opinion of the Post's chief copy editor is that those who developed the Internet are "brilliant people, but they're not the ones we should be looking to for language instruction."

It will be interesting to see how our usage changes in years to come, but for now I'll be happy with having the new books for reference. Copyright 2000 looks to me like the latest style.