Talk:Rear admiral
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[edit] New Template
I like the new template, but it needs to be modified to show larger font. Right now, it is almost unreadable as the size of the letters is extremely small. Just a thought for whoever made the template in the first place. "The English, the English, the English are best!" -Husnock 17 Nov 2004
[edit] British POV
- The term Rear Admiral originated from the days of Naval Sailing Squadrons, and is most directly associated with the British Royal Navy.
The second half of that statement strikes me as utterly POV. How does one determine what "most directly" means? Most rear admirals are British? Most people in the world think of "rear admiral" as a British rank? I strongly suspect the former isn't true (by a long shot), and I challenge anyone to prove the latter. Unless someone can suggest a valid reason for keeping that clause, I intend to remove it, leaving the historical British origin, a verifiable statement, in place. — Jeff Q 13:13, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
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- Agreed, go for it. Stan 14:12, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Well seeing as the British had Rear Admiral as a rank before the US navy existed and the Rest of Europe (who had their own names for the rank if they had it at all!)I say we should keep it. The article is already littered with pictures of the American Rank and has a whole paragraph for it. In my opinion it seems you are using your own point of view that anything that mentions the British had something first is biased.
[edit] Designations for Rear Admirals
It has changed, and someone needs to update the template. As of when I left the Navy in late 2003, Read Admiral (Lower) was now RDML and Rear Admiral (Upper) was RADM.--Mitsukai 04:33, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
[edit] RN Officers
The template is misleading by suggesting that the ranks in the RN are one grade below the US ones - i.e. O6 (USN) is Captain yet the suggestion is that OF6 (RN) is Cdre which may mean that readers think that an RN captain is subordinate to a USN captain which is not true. The difficulty appears to begin with the snotty (Midshipman) rank as it is not the only training rank as graduate-entry training officers will be subs.
The template should be renumbered to reflect the fact that the USN differentiates between Lt (j.g. and full) whereas the RN does not. Ensign is roughly equivalent to a snotty and a sub is roughly equivalent (although I understand in NATO terms junior to) a Lt(j.g.). From Lt-Cdr onwards the USN and RN ranks are comparable - with Commodore (RN) now being a substantive rank (it used to be honorary) at 1* level (i.e. RADML USN).
Alisdair Gillespie.
[edit] Capitalization
I stumbled across this article, and have a question which is probably equally valid for other military rank articles. I see why Rear Admiral Jones or so is capitalized, but shouldn't "a rear admiral", "an admiral", ... be in lowercase? Dictionary.com agrees, but perhaps more official dictionaries or some WP guideline disagrees with me. If there has been a relevant discussion about this yet somewhere else, pleasae point me there! Fram 07:22, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Move to Rear admiral
- The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the debate was Move Duja► 17:30, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
Since it has been almost three months since I posted the previous section (capitalization) without any comments, all dictionaries spell "rear admiral", and even Prime Minister has been moved to Prime minister, I guess no one will disagree if in a few weeks time I move this article to Rear admiral and change the capitalization of all instances where it doesn't point to one particular person or function, but to the general subject... Thereafter, many other articles will follow as well, but that can be discussed on their specific talk pages again. 12:17, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
- Rear Admiral → Rear admiral —(Discuss)— Correct capitalization, see e.g. the Prime Minister to Prime minister move. Move has been suggested on the talk page since October 20th: I'll add a formal section now. —Fram 15:00, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
- Support -- I assume that the move cannot be done boldly? Robert A.West (Talk)
- No, I got the message that some admin needs to do it (possible becvause the target has more than one line in its history). Fram 15:18, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
- Oppose. It's a technical term, not a general one. No one is called a Rear Admiral without actually being one. "Prime Minister" is different in that it can be a general term to describe a head of government and doesn't necessarily refer to people who are actually Prime Ministers. Look at Category:Military ranks for similar examples of correctly capitalised military ranks. Proteus (Talk) 17:38, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
- Comment. Whether a title is used figuratively, or whether a military rank, is not relevant to proper usage. Capitalization depends on usage. When used nominatively to refer to a specific person, it is a proper noun. When prefixed to a name, it is an attributive modifier and is capitalized along with the proper noun it modifies. When used as a job description, it is a common noun and is not capitalized. This information can be found in the front matter of any decent dictionary. An example:
- "The Prime Minister reviewed the promotion list. We need two rear admirals, one for the new carrier group, and one to replace the late Rear Admiral Smith." Robert A.West (Talk) 19:45, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
- Most (all?) of the articles in the category military ranks are incorrectly capitalized and need to be moved as well. All dictionaries have "rear admiral", not "Rear Admiral"[1], [2], [3], or [4]. Newspapers use the lowercase as well when referencing to the rank in general[5], as does CNN[6] and the BBC[7]. Finally, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions, the very first point: "Do not capitalize second and subsequent words unless the title is a proper noun (such as a name) or is otherwise almost always capitalized (for example: John Wayne and Art Nouveau, but not Computer Game).". Rear admiral is not a proper noun (unless used for one specific person: Rear Admiral Edwards), and is not "almost always capitalized", as I have just shown. This one should be in lower case, per common usage and the MoS, and all other military ranks should do likewise. Fram 20:11, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) The US Naval War College's style manual defers to the GPO style manual on general matters. I specifically cite [8]: "Titles not capitalized: Charles F. Hughes, rear admiral, U.S. Navy: the rear admiral." Robert A.West (Talk) 20:17, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
- All you've done is cite US usage, which (as a British English speaker) I don't follow. The Royal Navy, for instance, uses "Rear Admiral" all the time. My vote stands. Proteus (Talk) 20:49, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
- I cited the BBC, I can also give you the Oxford Pocket dictionary[9], and I'm fairly certain that the larger versions of the Oxford dictionary will support this as well. I can also give you The Times[10], The Guardian[11], and The Independent[12]. I can't get much more "British English", I think... Fram 21:02, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
- Just a comment for clarification - not intending to detract from your main point but the OED is not a British English dictionary and is not prescriptive. It is a descriptive international dictionary and even has a North American Editorial Department - as such it should not be used to indicate or dictate what is or isn't British usage. For solely British English, Chambers as used by British scrabble players is preferred. Jooler 11:59, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
- Thanks, I'm not familiar with these dictionaries, and I supposed that Oxford would be predominantly British English. Can anyone indicate what preference the Chambers dictionary has? The rest of my point stands of course, and my links do indicate a general usage (by major news sources) of "rear admiral" in Great Britain. Fram 12:11, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
- Chambers has it lowercase. --SigPig \SEND - OVER 20:11, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
- Allright, let's hope that Proteus will change his !vote now his objections have been met. Fram 20:33, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
- Out of curiosity, doesn't the OED clearly distinguish American and British usage where relevant? Robert A.West (Talk) 20:35, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
- Just a comment for clarification - not intending to detract from your main point but the OED is not a British English dictionary and is not prescriptive. It is a descriptive international dictionary and even has a North American Editorial Department - as such it should not be used to indicate or dictate what is or isn't British usage. For solely British English, Chambers as used by British scrabble players is preferred. Jooler 11:59, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
- I cited the BBC, I can also give you the Oxford Pocket dictionary[9], and I'm fairly certain that the larger versions of the Oxford dictionary will support this as well. I can also give you The Times[10], The Guardian[11], and The Independent[12]. I can't get much more "British English", I think... Fram 21:02, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
- Comment. Whether a title is used figuratively, or whether a military rank, is not relevant to proper usage. Capitalization depends on usage. When used nominatively to refer to a specific person, it is a proper noun. When prefixed to a name, it is an attributive modifier and is capitalized along with the proper noun it modifies. When used as a job description, it is a common noun and is not capitalized. This information can be found in the front matter of any decent dictionary. An example:
- Support capitalise when referring to specific ones, lower case when talking about the rank in abstract. -- Beardo 05:10, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
- The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
