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In the comments section of a piece on Slate.com (http://www.slate.com/id/2252165/entry/2252512/#add-comment), posters seem much more interested in the choice to spell Labour Party as Labor Party than about the elections themselves.
Interesting. But a legitimate question. In French, journalists usually write "le parti travailliste". So if it's OK to change the entire word, why not change the spelling to conform with US usage? Does the fact that both versions are in the same language change anything?
Have a read of the posts on Slate and come back and speak your mind.
It's a tricky topic.
In general, I'm in favor of keeping proper names intact, so I would not change the spelling. However, as a global culture, we change proper names from other countries all of the time. We use Rome, instead of easily employed Roma — which we do use for the tomato. And United States gets translated into all sorts of languages. I don't find these offensive.
My personal style guide would have me list the proper name intact (or transliterated) in its first use and, if I intended to use something else thereafter, follow the first use with a parentheses containing an abbreviation or a translation that I intended to use.
Standing on the Krasnaya ploshchad' (Red Square) … (I would use Red Square thereafter.)
According to the Académie française you should … (I would use Académie francaise thereafter.)
The Labour Party (Labor Party) … just looks silly. I think I would stick to Labour.
But then, some might tell me it should not be the Académie française, but l'Académie française. To those people, I would say "Shut up."
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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