I adore the NY Times practice of addressing the principals in its articles as Mr., etc. . Anyone know of other publications that adhere to this classy style?
BA
Except that they sometimes get it wrong, like with ‘Mr. Hussein’ when it should be ‘Mr. Saddam’. Arguably Arabic names are differently structured enough that it’s not exactly straightforward which to use, and most English speakers thought of him as ‘Mr. Hussein’. What do they do for Asian heads of state? Mr. Mao? Mr. Kim? I’m not sure if they use foreign titles, even for the languages where it’s common to do so in English: M. Chirac, Herr Schroeder, maybe Sro. Ciampi. Or the corresponding official titles for dignitaries. I assume they would at least use Dr.
What would be even more elegant, especially in an American newspaper, would be if they followed the British English standard of omitting the final period/full stop when the last letter of the abbreviation is the last letter of the word: ‘Mr Bush met with Mr Blair yesterday to discuss the latter’s involvement in Iraq.’ Or better yet, ‘Messrs Bush and Blair.’
Yes, I like the omission, but why do you specify in “American”?
BA
No, I fucking hate that. It’s even worse than the preposterous British practice of uncapitalizing acronyms.
My favorite NYTimes-ism is when they refer to over-the-hill rocker/actor Meat Loaf as “Mr. Loaf.”
“Mr. Loaf.”
Heheheh.
Cite?
BA
The Wall Street Journal and the Economist.
These folks use the same convention in print, but not on the website:
It leans rightward, content-wise.
The Times can be slow to change. For many years, Gloria Steinem was Miss Steinem of Ms. magazine.
NPR seems to do that at least most of the time.