A reader writes,
When abbreviating U.S. Navy ranks, be sure they are in all caps with no period. e.g.: CAPT Mariner.
There is a whole system of "rank grammar" surrounding this. For each service no less! Without saying what the ranks are, U.S. Army and Navy abbreviated ranks are in all capital letters. U.S. Air Force and Marine Corps abbreviated ranks are in mixed case, with a period following if used in correspondence.
I always respect foreign languages, especially when they come with massive amounts of firepower. But wonderful as Militarese may be for its speakers, I don't see why I should abandon standard English abbreviations for Militarese abbreviations, any more than I should abandon standard English spellings of foreign place names and instead use the foreign original. So it's Capt. and (say) Florence for me, not CAPT and Firenze. (I also like the look of mixed-case more than I like the look of all-caps, which helps influence my decision, though standard English idiom is more important to me than aesthetics.)
Related Posts (on one page):
- Correctness and People's Personal Names:
- Mistakes About "Correctness":
- CAPT
- "Correctness":
- We Speak English on This Blog:
("A shprakh iz a dialekt mit an armey un flot.")
- Max Weinreich
circa 1945
Your way encourages ambiguity. Much in the way Dr. can signify an M.D. or a Ph.D.
So, if you want to encourage ambiguity with your lack of specificity, by all means, do so. But to do so might result in a loss of credibility when observed by people familiar with the military.
I am a Chemical Engineer, but I don't expect to communicate with non-engineers with engineering vocabulary that they are unfamiliar with.
Your example of "Dr" doesn't help. Isn't it common practice in publications to write Dr. before the name rather than M.D. or Ph.d after the name?
I agree there can be confusion because the title captain conveys different status and seniority in different services. That is a common problem with titles. For example, the titlke Judge can refer to all levels -- from admin Judges to Judges of the federal circuits --even though that can also cause confusion regarding seniority or status. Right?
A few others come to mind with regards to the Navy --
1. It is the Strait of Hormuz. Not the "Straits" of Hormuz. Calling it the latter instantly exposes one as uninformed.
2. You serve "in" a ship. Not "on." For example, I was embarked in the USS CONSTELLATION (another Navy-ism -- ship names are always capitalized).
3. It is the Arabian Gulf. Not the Persian Gulf.
except when the Secreatry of the Navy is suing someone, See Dalton v. Southwst Marine, 120 F.3d 1249 ("USS Duluth"), or losing a bid protest, http://www.gao.gov/decisions/bidpro/2978792.htm ("USS Gunston Hall")
Shame on you.
Imagine getting a letter from a client saying that the other side should not be able to sue because the matter is a matter judged and, in any event, it was from something done afteward!
To use legalese, and expect others to do so, but not to use language common to another community of professionals is hypocrisy. Quid pro quo, I say. QED.
That is a good point, but it is not too relevant. When the US Navy puts out a press release about a captain, it is pretty obvious that the rank referred to is US Navy rank. As I wrote earlier, I would have no objection to "US Navy Capt. xxxx." My objection is to using the abbreviation "Capt." without designating branch.
Mark this date and time. It is the beginning of the end.
Speaking for myself as a former squid, using CAPT rather than Capt. does not matter at all. Civilians don't get it, aren't going to, and there is no reason they should. It's a subculture, and very few people live in it.
CTR2
That's why we call is the Persian Gulf War.
Use plain English. If you're operating in an all military context, use your jargon. Outside that context, I won't know what you mean anyway (nor will a lot of other people) so if it's important make it clear.
Prof. Volokh did designate Capt. Mariner's branch; see the parenthetical in the first post.
As a side note, as someone mentioned, one of the red flags in the Rathergate forgeries was using the army version of LTC for the air force version LtCol. Dead giveaway it wasnt written by an air force officer. So there are at least some forensic uses for abbreviations.
Yes he did. And then the conversation morphed from the specific use in that post to the general use.
Prof. Voloch did not defend his specific use, but claimed that in all cases he would use the abbreviation Capt., not CAPT. I think that the general usage would create ambiguity, but that the specific usage in the original post was proper since there was no ambiguity.
He signs his correspondence Capt. [His name], USN Ret.
He doesn't seem to be offended when he gets correspondence addressed to Capt. [His name]. If it's good enough for Pop Pop, it's good enough for me.
--PtM
Of greater note this thread has generated more interest than the original!
CTA1
You can go see his boat; it's in Muskegon, Michigan on display.
I'm always irked when the British press uses Nasa instead of NASA, F1-11 instead of F-111, and C.I.A. instead of CIA.
Pet peeve: civilians (especially journalists) who refer to a senior NCO (i.e. Master Sergeant or Sergeant Major) as "Sergeant."
There.
Never meant to suggest that you implied I was a navy man myself. I was just tossing out my thought.
On another topic.
The Silversides is an awesome boat. At one point during the war, Grandfather and his colleagues were in port and heard that Admiral Hallsey had a planned position indicator that was going to be installed on his flagship. The PPI was a tremendous tactical tool, as it would allow the ship using it to detect enemy aircraft from much further away than was previously possible. Enemy aircraft were particularly dangerous to submarine crews, and early detection was critical.
So Pop Pop and his crew stole^h^h^h^h^h, er commandeered it. They were a little worried that they'd be courtmartialed when they returned from their next sea patrol, but it was just sitting on the docks. Fortunately, their captain had played football for Hallsey at the Naval Academy. Instead of a courtmartial, they received a commendation.
They had to saw it in half to get it into the Silversides.
--PtM
Well, that's a lot of crap. Back during the Iraqi-Iranian war, I learned that the Arabs call it the Persian Gulf, and while I have no problem with their doing so, I don't believe we should change our long-standing practice just because the Shah is no longer in power and we have tilted our policy toward Iran's Arab rivals in that quarter of the world.
When someone speaks the lingo to me, I know that they have some idea about what they're talking about. If I were in the military, I would get this stuff right. Since I am not, I don't think anyone should expect me to know it.
We were taught in medical school that a person with a PhD is called Dr. John Smith while a physician is John Smith MD.
I frequently get correspondence to Dr. John Smith MD. That is like wearing both a belt and suspenders.
Allan is correct...when conversing with people familiar with, or serving in, the Navy, using Capt. instead of CAPT is a sure-fire way to draw ire.
A few others come to mind with regards to the Navy --
1. It is the Strait of Hormuz. Not the "Straits" of Hormuz. Calling it the latter instantly exposes one as uninformed.
2. You serve "in" a ship. Not "on." For example, I was embarked in the USS CONSTELLATION (another Navy-ism -- ship names are always capitalized).
3. It is the Arabian Gulf. Not the Persian Gulf
Navy Guidelines
I think your comment makes sense when both people are Navy but even the Navy does not agree with your first claim about capitalizing rank. I suppose there technically are no Straits except Dire Straits but this seems to be a matter like a hat or a cover. If the Navy map says Arabian Gulf, it's to be expected that will be it's reference. Historically the Arabian Gulf was the ancient name for the Red Sea. I believe it's the UN that insists the correct name is the Persian Gulf. Many Arab countries and the US Navy prefer Arabian Gulf.
They've also morphed their data formats, if not since World War II, then at least since the beginning of World War II. I've read military documents from 1941 that set the date forth in a format identical to the conventional civilian form (e.g., "December 7, 1941"). It appears that some time in 1942, they switched to the "7 December 1941" format, and that later they went to "7 DEC 1941." Does anyone know the story behind this? (And while we're at it, when did the military start using "military time" (e.g., 1330 for 1:30 pm), and why does the army say "1330 hours" while the navy and Marine Corps say "1330"?)
Well that annoys me; when I hear "the Gulf," I assume the reference is to the one that Biloxi and Gulfport face onto.
And I did a tour in the Persian Gulf during the Iran-Iraq War during the Iran/Iraq War (Nov 87-May 88).
Our deployment orders specifically called it the Persian Gulf. My Citations for my Expeditionary and Navy Commendation Medals cite the Persian Gulf as the location.
The whole Arabian Gulf thing is a recent thing to make nice with the Arab nations since we have decided that we won't ever be friends with the Persian nation (Iran) again.
Oops, what I meant to say was that "I learned that the Arabs call it the *Arabian* Gulf"
In order to be unambiguous I us "Miss" or "Mrs." but never "Ms". (And I'm old enough to be able to get away with it.) My point is that whether or not something is ambiguous can be a matter of choice. If EV or anyone else chooses to be one over the other that's his to make, as it is mine to bring specificity to an address.
This is all so silly.
Mayor John F. Street Announces Creation of Faith Leaders Advisory Taskforce:
Faith Leaders Advisory Taskforce Members
* Pastor Nick Taliaferro, North Philadelphia Seventh Day Adventist Church and Executive Director, Human Relations Commission.
This writer believes the Taskforce expresses messages that might result in making non-religious people feel unwelcome, especially if they're not a "national origin person."
I presume you should shout the capitalized words. So it would be: [normal voice] "I'd like to introduce you to [loud voice] CAPTAIN! [normal voice] Smith." Failure to properly shout when addressing a superior officer is a seious naval faux pas and will get you busted down to SEAMAN THIRD CLASS!
The basis of this objection seems to be that Navy captains are several ranks above Army/Marines captains, and that one might not appreciate the full power and prestige that attends a Navy captain.
But this is inherent whenever titles are applied differently in different contexts. There isn't a mandate to mangle English grammar to avoid understating a captain's importance.
Didn't we just have a discussion here recently about how "Assistant Attorney General" is a very big deal in the federal Department of Justice, but is an introductory-level title in some state systems? For that matter, compare the President of the United States to the president of a college--both are referred to in both written and spoken contexts, as President So-and-So. Is it an insult to President Bush that he's not PRESIDENT Bush (or CMDR-IN-CHF Bush, or whatever the Navy uses)?
Using USS CONSTITUTION in non-technical civilian documents to refer to a naval vessel strikes me as outright pretension.
I'm sorry, but that's just baloney. NOBODY among the general public knows about those all-cap abbreviations. NOBODY among the general public would see CAPT and say oh, that must be a Navy captain, not an Army one. In writing for the general public, there's no need to use jargon which will clarify things for only a very small, very select group of people. And all of those people should, by definition, know that without clarification as to branch, the title is ambiguous.
It's not just a term of art. It's a title, and it's a title that people have paid significant dues to earn.
And yet, you would jump all over me if I were to dare refer to the Chief Justice of the United States as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, or mention the past Attorney Generals, or call a judge Your Excellency instead of Your Honor (or even You're Honor).
Now that I'm a Second Lieutenant, which is written out 2LT, I'm usually addressed as "Hey, you" or "You, with your hands in your pockets".
That's probably fairly common in the different services.
That said, a few observations: It is "Halsey," not "Hallsey."
I, too, was once a Staff Sergeant. In the Marines, the abbreviation is the very traditional "S/Sgt." I was addressed, by long tradition, as "sergeant." When I was promoted to Gunnery Sergeant, I was always addressed (also by long tradition) as "Gunny" -- except when parade, at which time the full rank was used for all hands. The abbreviation was and is "GySgt."
I see no reason to further perplex the lay public with the silly caps used by some services. It is visually distracting and very confusing. Good usage means standard abbreviations, as in any good manual of style. I would suggest this goes double for lawyers. Nothing interferes with more with comprehension than a lot of lawyer-speak.
I did appreciate the point made by JohnAnnArbor and rarango about the possible significance of the Army "LTC" vs Air Force "LtCol." as evidence that the memo relied on by Rather was a forgery. Conan Doyle might have had Sherlock Holmes crack a case with that sort of pick up. Some informally distinguish the lesser rank of lieutenant colonel (0-5) from the higher one of colonel (0-6) by referring to the latter as a "bird" colonel after the insignia for that rank, the former as "light" colonel or "telephone" colonel. (It is entirely proper for an 0-5 answering the telephone to identify themself as "Colonel X," and they are addressed as "Colonel X," but when you saw them in uniform you would see they were in fact "LTC X.")
* * *
This sentence concerns Capt. Steve Rogers; in USAF usage, an individual is assumed to be in the Air Force absent a service designation.
* * *
28 AD SO 2007-419
The following individuals are appointed to serve as members of a Special Court-Martial of an enlisted accused to be held at xxxx commencing at 0800 on 14 Dec 2007:
COL MARTIN, DEAN I., 552 AWACW
LTCOL SINATRA, FRANCIS K., 964 AWACS
LTCOL LEWIS, JEROME L., 28 AD/IN
CAPT DAVIS JR., SAMUEL D., 552 AGS
CMSGT NEIGHBORS, JAMES (NMI), 963 AWACS
SMSGT RICKLES, DONALD R., 552 CRS
SMSGT PRESLEY, ELVIS (NMI), 552 AWACW/LGX
STEVEN D. AUSTIN, Maj Gen, USAF
Commander
* * *
So, I'm afraid I have to disagree with the blanket assertion that the USAF always uses mixed case and a period.... I'd like to think I learned USAF usage fairly well given the amount of paperwork I was responsible for!
Pretty good. ;-) So, what about "Gunner?" (Not the same as "Gunny").
By the way, the "soft side" is not what the Marines are about.
Indeed.
Right again.
Don't you mean "USS CONSTELLATION (CV-64)"???
:-)
Typical civilian contempt for the military.
The Marines never abandoned the traditional method of writing ranks. The army decided that computers were more important than people and required the use of three letters only in writing a rank.
They also have really ugly uniforms. I wouldn't be caught dead wearing a beret. My unit in San Antonio is located on an army base and when I needed to buy a new Marine uniform I tried to get it tailored on base. But there aren't any tailors in the army or the air force that do anything except hem. That's probably why they look so bad in their ill fitting uniforms.
They also have way too many dangles and jangles on their uniforms. Every cub scout level unit, AROTC for example, has their own special patch that no one care about or could possibly recognize except 20 people in the world, yet it's important enough to put on the uniform. They exceptionalize the trivial, but trivialize the main things.
The army has a lot of weird things that rub a Marine the wrong way. The way they abbreviate ranks is symptomatic of their bureaucratic, one size fits all, no tailoring attitude.
Okay, that's a shot across the bow. Give it back army, if you can.
As to other foreign place names, I of course say Rome, Warsaw, Moscow, etc., rather than Roma, Varshava (which is how Poles pronounce Warszawa), Moskva, etc. I go with Beijing because English idiom seems to have changed on that, but the test is English idiom (which is correctness with reference to English), not correctness with reference to the foreign language. (For more, see here.)
As to working hard to earn a military title, I very much respect that -- as I'd respect a Russian officer who justly earned the title "polkovnik" in fighting the Nazis. But in English, I'd still call him "colonel." My view is the same as to professional jargon as it is to foreign languages; I prefer to translate, when possible, into standard English.
Use the correct title - it's a matter of courtesy, not clarification. We're not talking about a "select few" here, we're talking about millions of active and former military, many of whom are risking or have risked their lives so you can sit around and whine about differences between the services.
Generally, no one is writing about service members without looking at something else written about them - so there is really no excuse for getting it wrong. There is no need for civvies to actually memorize this stuff.
Likewise, the correct abbreviation in military jargon for a naval captain is apparently "CAPT" -- a departure from normal English abbreviation conventions, but military jargon has its own conventions. Yet when one is using normal English rather than military jargon, the equally correct normal English abbreviation is "Capt.," and there's nothing discourteous about that.
With that in mind, any reasonable courtesy to better serve a healthier and more honestly examined set of issues relevant to the civilian/military nexus and divide seems entirely warranted. It's not at all different from referring to a bona fide professor as simply a "Mr." instead of "Professor."
There is a great deal more here than meets the eye at first blush.
The Army is able to use more insignia and design in uniforms because soldiers have the cognitive ability to remember what the different insignia represent.
When I take preschoolers on a field trip, I had them all dress the same also. It eliminated the childless bickering of "yours is different" that is so common in small-minded individuals.
There's actually an order in the Navy/Marine Corps specifically forbidding the use of "hours" when referring to the time. The idea is that you already know it is time, you need not be redundant by saying "hours."
Lots of military rules are made when pedants are put in power.
The Army is much larger than the Corps, and has a variety of missions that the Marines don't even begin to encounter. Our Regimental system is full of history and we believe that our uniforms tell the history of the Soldier wearing it. Our left sleeve informs our brothers what unit we belong to, our right sleeve informs others of what unit we saw wartime service with. If we wear a badge on our left chest, it tells our personal story. I have Airborne wings and a Combat Medical Badge on mine. It shows that I'm an Army paratrooper and that I've treated wounded Soldiers while engaged in combat. Our Army Combat Uniform (ACU) is very comfortable and much lighter than yours. It's also new, and I have no doubt that small changes will occur to it over the years. Just like the BDU's. We've gotten rid of the Greens and kept the Blues. Our Blues are reflective of the Army's Cavalry history. The pants are a lighter shade of blue than the coat and represent the fact that Soldiers, in the field and on fatigue, used to remove their coats for the hard work they performed, resulting in the pants bleaching to a lighter color. The officer saber is also a cavalry saber. The beret, which I wore as a member of an Airborne Infantry company for 9 years, is a recent change to the whole Army. Like any new piece of equipment or uniform, it'll take the legs some time to get used to it. They will. By the way, I've trained with Marines before, on several occasions, and the high speed ones all had something on their chests as well. Since you don't, I wouldn't expect you to understand. In a nutshell, the Army has its own traditions that we're perfectly happy with. Fortunately for you, you don't need to be bothered by them. I understand the Navy's infantry has it's own.
You have patch for this a patch for that, and no one really cares that you belong to the some obscure personnel admin support detachment patch, and a jangle here and a jangle there, and all that stuff. Oh, and don't forget the ribbon for graduating from boot camp and entry level school, or is that just the airforce?
WWII army uniforms were cool. Now they're just ugly. It's a grave misservice to a fine organization to make them wear ugly uniforms. The fact that no one wears any uniform except their camouflage utilities unless they're forced to or are testifying to congress kind of speaks to that.
I fought a nice invasion of Hit with Charlie First of the Ninth and their commanding officer was a great guy. Good sense. I didn't meet many of his soldiers personally, but I really liked having all his tanks and bradleys with us.
The truth is that all the services have pedantic rules that make no sense to others, and usually not to themselves even. That's the nature of the military where pedants get to be in charge and make rules. And once a rule is made by a pedant, it's there forever. The non-pedants are the ones fighting the battles and thankfully there aren't usually enough battles to keep them occupied all the time.
Personal? Not even.
Listen, I'm pretty sure my short history lesson on the Army and some of it's traditions was fairly simple to understand. Again, you choose to belittle it. And we maintain those traditions because we like them. So, apparently, somebody does "care". I like our uniforms. You don't. Some how, the Army will just have to find a way to go on.
In general, aren't those with the spiffiest appearing uniforms less likely to prevail than those with the less attention getting ones? The Israelis have no fancy dress, yet manage to fight pretty impressively, don't they? And the Nazis had the really striking uniforms but lost, right? So long as poor dress (uniforms) is not a reflection of inadequate resources and one is not talking about a truly rag-tag force, isn't it better to bet on those with the less natty uniforms than the more natty ones?
The Marines, of course, are only a component of the US's military, and the smallest at that. In fatigues, they are not very different appearing from Army troops. But yes, when dressed up (Class A's?), they do look sharp. Indeed, like the infamous House of the Rising Sun in New Orleans, those spiffy dress uniforms have tempted many a poor boy and been the ruin of some.
Well, to be fair, the subject wasn't warfighting, it was pedantic sticklers of silly rank abbreviations. I was pointing out that the army's abbreviations were made to accommodate computers rather than making computers accommodate rank abbreviations. We're long past the time when an extra byte or two in a data base will be such a burden. The tie-in to the uniforms is that they're more concerned with the machine of the army putting people into uniforms without tailoring than in making the uniforms fit the individuals.
And then I was snarky about the army in general, but that was just for spice.
Swede told us: "our right sleeve informs others of what unit we saw wartime service with". I remember the "rule" as being: "the unit that we experienced combat service with."
Shipley ex E-5, air corps,
aka WartHog369 (is 'aka' lawyer-speak?)
(and, Swede, my right sleeve patch is MACV with time in III corps areas with the army and in IV corps areas with the navy guys in the floppy hats)
does my typo take anything away from the story? Then why comment on it? It's a story I've heard many times over the years. Sadly, the difference between Hallsey and Halsey is one that my ears can't detect.
However, in the future, I'll make sure I've got the spelling right.
--PtM