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To: henkster
Just curious why the newspapers in the 1940s always spelled McArthur "M'Arthur".

Was it that difficult to get that lower case "c" in there?

8 posted on 08/24/2015 4:31:20 AM PDT by SamAdams76 (We gave GOP the majority to take care of business and they let us down. Time for Trump/Cruz)
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To: SamAdams76

I think it was to save a little space in the headline. Notice they don’t do it in the body of the story.


9 posted on 08/24/2015 4:34:00 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson ("Every nation has the government that it deserves." - Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821))
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To: SamAdams76; Homer_J_Simpson
Just curious why the newspapers in the 1940s always spelled McArthur "M'Arthur".

Perhaps because his name wasn't McArthur.

It was MacArthur.

When counting headlines, the 'M' was already a two count. the ' ' ' added a half count the 'A' is 1.5. So M'A totals a count of 4. 'MACA' has a count of 6.5. So the headline would have to be completely re-written to fit in the additional space.

If you note, the headlines there are all caps. If they were upper and lower, my guess is that their stylebook would have spelled it out.

12 posted on 08/24/2015 4:55:31 AM PDT by PAR35
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To: SamAdams76

I’m sure there was some sort of editorial shorthand convention that allowed them to save space in a headline.


13 posted on 08/24/2015 4:57:03 AM PDT by henkster (Ms. Clinton, are you a criminal or just really stupid?)
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