Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike Cecil
Tony: I have an Anzac/ANZAC (note the non-committal each way bet ....) commemorative biscuit tin
|
Yes I detected some ambivalence in your initial post Mike, and I'll be interested to see how you resolve it in due course. Meanwhile you're just the man to chair this debate and retain the non-committal 'Anzac/ANZAC' device for yourself. Like you I hope we get some more input as folks come to grips with the issues here, and that includes folks overseas as this concerns them too. Like I said, 'Anzac' is a word in the English language, and has been for the past century. As such it's in use around the world, but presently in Australia and New Zealand an attempt is afoot to expunge it completely. There can be no doubt this attempt will succeed here quite soon - the job is already accomplished in print, with much of the population following suit in their own writing, including many MLU members. As can be seen however the debate remains quite impassioned, and wherever you live in the world you must choose 'Anzac' or 'ANZAC' in your own writing too, and that includes speakers of all languages. If you're undecided, then for the purposes of posting here you can always use Mike's device, or perhaps a shortened hybrid like ANZac.
Just to clarify the position, here is the word we're talking about, as it appears in the Oxford Dictionary online:
Anzac
1. A soldier in the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (1914-1918)
1.1 informal: A person from Australia or New Zealand, especially a member of the armed services.
Here's how it appears in Cambridge Dictionaries Online:
We do not have an entry for Anzac. Have a look at how it is spelled. Did you type it correctly? We have these words with similar spellings or pronunciations:
anal
ansa
Kwanzaa
stanzas
kwanzaa
kwanza
stanza
prozac
bonanzas
As you'd expect, Cambridge has no entry for ANZAC either, because it's not a dictionary of military acronyms. Thus we find Cambridge has completely expunged the word 'Anzac' from the English language.
Of particular interest is Macmillan Dictionary online, which like Cambridge has also removed the word 'Anzac', and yet strangely provides the acronym, but defines it as a word:
ANZAC
a soldier from the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, especially in the First World War.
This is unprecedented, and contravenes English grammar. It stands as the only word in the English language spelt entirely in capital letters. Does this HERALD the start OF a process WHEREBY we arbitrarily SPELL any word THAT takes our FANCY entirely in capital LETTERS? Evidently Cambridge don't subscribe to this new selective grammar, and since the spelling of the word 'Anzac' is now politically incorrect, they've been forced to drop the word entirely. One suspects Oxford may never subscribe to such abuse of English grammar either, and while they've resisted the tide of political correctness thus far, it's only a matter of time before they too succumb like Cambridge and drop their 'Anzac' entry. Whereupon Macmillan will have no reason to retain their curious acronym/word hybrid, which like Mike's Anzac/ANZAC hybrid is but a temporary device to accommodate political correctness, which in the absence of any Oxford entry they'll be free to drop as aberrant.
Thus while we bicker and bitch about the spelling of the word 'Anzac' here in Australia and New Zealand, it will quietly disappear from the English language. And just to remind you what will have disappeared from world view: "A soldier in the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (1914-1918)", and "A person from Australia or New Zealand, especially a member of the armed services".
Meanwhile of course every English dictionary in the world will continue to recognize words earned by soldiers of other nations, because unlike us they are satisfied with an initial capital letter only. For example:
Marine
a. a soldier in the Royal Marines
b. a soldier in the US Marine Corps
Of course, they won't see their respective military acronyms in dictionaries, nor do they expect to, not even in Macmillan:
USMC
Sorry, no search result for USMC.
Did you mean:
uses
used
user
umma
sac
sec
sic
ism
isms
use
And long after the word 'Anzac' has disappeared from world view and memory, and any search for it in dictionaries will suggest 'anal' as the closest word, the following word will continue to be recognized until the end of time with an initial capital letter:
Nazi
someone who belonged to the Nazi Party, which was established and led by Adolph Hitler between 1933 and 1945. The Nazi Party governed Germany before and during the Second World War.
Make no mistake here - dictionaries are subject to political correctness, but English grammar is not. You can force dictionaries to drop the word Anzac, but you cannot force them to misspell words. There will never be a word in the English language spelt ANZAC, just like there will never a word spelt NAZI. They are both acronyms which have spawned words, purely by chance arrangement of consonants and vowels. Just like 'radar' and 'laser', which being common nouns are not spelt with an initial capital letter.
Therefore be very clear what you are seeking here. For the past century the world has recognized both the acronym ANZAC and the word Anzac. You can ask the world to kindly stop using the word Anzac because we now find it offensive, and they will accede to our wishes and strike it from their dictionaries, redirecting us instead to 'anal'. What you cannot do is ask the world's dictionaries to spell your favourite word in capital letters. ANZAC is an acronym, not a word, and English dictionaries don't list acronyms. Once you've expunged the word Anzac from the English language, you'll be left only with the acronym ANZAC, which you'll only find listed in specialist publications like "Australian Military Abbreviations, Acronyms & Codes" by Mike Cecil.