A Memorial Day reminder
Many of us will be writing stories today mentioning "taps," those haunting 24 notes.
A reminder that under AP, New York Times, Webster's New World College and many other style guides and dictionaries, the term is lowercased with no quotation marks.
And as a bugle call, it is more correctly "sounded" than "played."
So the correct use: A bugler sounded taps at his burial.
I was reminded of this by the misuse on the Web by NPR's "Performance Today," which otherwise has an excellent story on the bugle call and its history, along with a discussion with Army Sgt. Maj. Woody English about taps and its history. (audio)
posted by Doug @ 11:22 AM
3 comments|
3 Comments:
A bugler sounded taps at his burial.
How could a bugler sound taps at his burial. Isn't he dead? ;-)
Ah, my friend, you make the classic mistake -- assuming and then ascribing your assumption onto that sentence. How do you know the bugler is not a woman? So if I am reading you correctly, you assume his refers back to the bugler when you have no context.
The sentence was obviously written without context merely to stress a usage point. But if it makes you feel better: A bugler sounded taps at the soldier's burial. :-)
Ah, I thought about the bugler being a she, but that destroys the joke, doesn't it?
In copy editing, it may be a classic mistake, but in humor, it's one of the pillars of the craft, as evidenced by mountains of Dilbert cartoons. :-)
hope to see you soon before I move to va.
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