WikiPOBia talk:Style Manual

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Terminology

I'm confused by the style guideline that "US Navy ships should use the abbreviation USN". This wasn't done at the time nor, IIRC, is it done in the Canon. The USN doesn't refer to its vessels this way, q.v., http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-c/chesapke.htm, inter alia. It also cuts down on our ability to refer properly to the vessels of the USN. How would we refer to the US Brig Niagara? I had a bit of a squabble over at Wikipedia about the use of proper appellative abbreviations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Battle_of_Lake_Erie) and while this seems slightly better, it still appears wholly unjustifiable.Czrisher 15:28, 5 June 2007 (BST)

USN is used twice in the canon in Fortune of War and Surgeon's Mate. According to research the wiki team has done, USS did not become the standard for US Naval ships until 1909. --LadyShelley 16:52, 5 June 2007 (BST)

I could certainly use some more research, but I would think that this is because it was not until soon before 1909 that the USN started having nothing _but_ ships. How would one have written out the abbreviation? "The US Navy's _Chesapeake_"? As opposed to the US Army's? And that would have told the listener/reader much less about the vessel in question. Any thoughts on where to look this up or what would be dispositive? I have seen, e.g., Perry's correspondence signed "US Brig" and Melville wrote in 1844, albeit in a novel, of the "United States Ship Neversink".Czrisher 19:35, 6 June 2007 (BST)

I'm hoping Bill or someone who more naval knowledge jumps in with better/more information to you regarding the historical research. As for WikiPOBia, I realize that both the US and Royal navies had various designations for their ships beyond HMS and USN. The problem is keeping some consistency for users searching the wiki as it gets larger. Wiki search engines are not very forgiving, when people are searching for information on various ships they will need to use a designation to find it, hence the USN and HMS. Now here's one for you, did the French, Spanish, Dutch etc have official designations for their ships and if it's an HMS we have a problem! --LadyShelley 22:06, 6 June 2007 (BST)