Yet Another Article

[King]

This one's not as negative as they usually are. It's actually about the reserves. I read it in the Toronto Star today. I'll give you the link cause there's a few pictures...
http://www.torontostar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1001935649388&call_page=TS_News&call_pageid=968332188492&call_pagepath=News/N ews

[garett]

Why does it say that they're RCR?
Fuckin dumb reporters.

[towhey]

Not an excuse, but a probable explanation.

Don't shoot the reporter -- yet.

It says "Royal Canadian Regiment" in the cutlines (photo captions) only. Generally, these are written by the photographer and edited/re-written by copy editors to fit the size of the space available once the page has been laid out -- usually late at night. For the Star, probably anywhere between 8 PM and 1 or 2 AM. For this story, probably at the early end of that scale.

This article was written by a freelancer (thus the byline tag "Special to the Star" and the writer's self-identification as a Ryerson student in the first paragraph). Therefore, the copyeditor -- who will almost certainly never have met the writer, nor spoken with him/her, would be extra careful -- and possibly dubious about the writer's expertise in the subject.

The copy editor is always working under a very tight time crunch and will have had only minutes to decide what to write. He/she may not have been the person who edited the story in which the proper name of the regiment is used.

Given the similarity between the "Royal Regiment of Canada" and the "Royal Canadian Regiment", I would wager my beer money that the copyeditor "corrected" the original copy thinking that "RRC" (or R Regt C, whatever) was wrong and that "RCR" -- which is far more widely recognized -- was right.

Although it will be a piss-off to the soldiers pictured, and their regimental buddies (and to many RCR soldiers), it is all things considered, a pretty minor, and entirely understandable error -- one which I have seen soldiers (regular and reserve) make many times.

How is it, anyway, that we have a "Royal Regiment of Canada" and a "Royal Canadian Regiment" ???

Who was in charge of naming regiments that day??

*s*

[This message has been edited by towhey (edited 10-03-2001).]

[towhey]

Further to my last...

The Royal Regiment of Canada Unit Information Officer or Brigade PAFFO should contact The Star and advise them of the error.

I would not ask for a correction -- it would be in mice type which no one will read anyway. However, the paper should correct the information in their archives so that the same picture is not used again in future with inaccurate information. This may also prompt the Star to make note of the existence of the RRC (?) in its own style guide so that copy editors in future might be less inclined to make the same error.