[Ads-l] Reality Winner

[Joel Berson]

I would want quantitative data too.

It appears to be standard practice in newspapers and journal articles to give a full name (including middle if available and useful), and to use only a surname thereafter.*  Thus a middle name will be dropped also.

* This may mainly be to save paper and ink, I suppose.


Joel


      From: Jim Parish <jparish at SIUE.EDU>
 To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU 
 Sent: Sunday, June 11, 2017 12:56 PM
 Subject: Re: [ADS-L] Reality Winner
   
On 6/11/2017 11:10 AM, Dave Wilton wrote:
> Journalists frequently use a person's middle name, especially someone charged with a crime, to distinguish them from potential others with the same name. Lee Harvey Oswald, for example, rarely used his middle name. He was just "Lee Oswald" to those who knew him. It was journalists who made the middle name iconic. Ditto for James Earl Ray.
>
> In Reality Winner's case, however, I don't think potential confusion with others is an issue, which may be why *more* journalists aren't using her middle name.

I'd want quantitative data before accepting that first claim. I can 
think of many people, accused of crimes similar to Winner's, whose 
middle names have not been reported prominently: Aldrich Ames, Edward 
Snowden, Bradley/Chelsea Manning, etc.

Jim Parish

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org


   

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org