Hmm. While I was interested

Posted on March 18, 2003 by Ian Betteridge

Hmm. While I was interested to see that the New York Times had actually bothered to report Cook’s resignation (unlike the War Channel AKA CNN), I was somewhat surprise that in its story, it called Cook’s party “The Labor Party”. Is it now standard practice to simply ignore the local spellings of names? Or do Americans really find “Labour” impossible to read?

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  • http://www.gyford.com/ Phil

    If you search BBC News for “Defense Department” and “Defence Department” you get more matches for the latter referring to the US department. Do the British *really* find “Defense” impossible to read?

    I guess the difference, if any, is that “The Labour Party” is more of a brand name, rather than a description? Either way, I’m not sure it’s as cut and dried as you imply.

  • http://www.ludicrous.org.uk Ian Betteridge

    Then – gasp – the BBC is simply wrong. If they’re using both “Defence Department” and “Defense Department” they’re being inconsistent, which in subbing terms is worse than being wrong.
    And shouldn’t it be “Department of Defense” anyway?

  • http://www.benhammersley.com Ben Hammersley

    Spellcheckers. It’s automatic spellcheckers. That’s all.

  • http://www.ludicrous.org.uk Ian Betteridge

    Ahhh, automatic spell checkers.. the work of Satan! :-)