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RE: Iraq War or war?
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Stewart, Bob
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Apr 16, 2006 18:37 PDT
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We use Gulf War II
-Bob Stewart
-San Antonio Express News
-----Original Message-----
From: John McIntyre [mailto:johnmc-@copydesk.org]
Sent: Friday, April 14, 2006 6:10 PM
To: ACES-@topica.com
Subject: RE: [ACES talk] Iraq War or war?
Douglas Fisher wrote:
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I'm fascinated by a little style point and would like others to weigh
in.
If we strictly follow the AP stylebook, we should be using Iraq War,
with "war" capped, just as we do Vietnam War or Persian Gulf War.
But as I've noticed (and confirmed through Nexis), very few of us are
doing that with Iraq. (Only Atlanta among the major papers and wires I
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Just wondering the thinking on this. Or have we thought about it?
Who is capping and who isn't and why?
I may use some of the answers on my blog or in my column.
Chrs,
Doug
Doug Fisher
Univ. of SC
School of Journ. and Mass. Comm.
(803) 777-3315
Common Sense Journalism: http://commonsensej.blogspot.com
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After a battle in the Middle Ages, heralds from the two sides would
confer to establish a number of things, among them what to name the
battle.
Since then, conventions of naming appear to be determined by usage over
time. Civil War buffs are accustomed to the idea that the two sides had
different names for the war itself and for individual battles: Bull
Run/Manassas. The Hundred Years War was obviously a name applied
retrospectively. World War I was commonly called the Great War until a
successor broke out.
My recollection -- I don't have any AP Stylebooks handy at home -- is
that AP for years lowercased "gulf war" and only in the last couple of
years changed the style to capitalize it. What determines this --
bureaucratic classifications by the VA, for example, or the consensus
among military hisorians -- appears to be fluid. It may be a matter of
simple prudence to wait until the war is over, and has been over for a
while, to decide what to call it formally.
John McIntyre
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