ANZAC or Anzac?

[Tony Wheeler]

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.

[Mike Cecil]

PERFECT, Tony!

(or is that 'Perfect, Tony?'....)

Another well reasoned and argued contribution.

Interesting the Oxford now contains the word Anzac. My shorter Oxford, purchased for me when at University in the 1970s, does not contain either ANZAC (which is understandable, as it is an acronym) or Anzac the word.

Thank you to all! Keep the comments coming.

Mike C

(And Lynn, an apology not needed: all adds to the colour. I've certainly learned some things from all the comments thus far, and I too have been guilty of such hijackings of other threads in the past, too.)

[Tony Wheeler]

Originally Posted by Mike Cecil

My shorter Oxford, purchased for me when at University in the 1970s, does not contain either ANZAC (which is understandable, as it is an acronym) or Anzac the word.

That's interesting Mike, does it contain the word Nazi? I'm now wondering when the word Anzac first appeared in dictionaries, I had assumed it would date back at least to 1921 Protection of Word 'Anzac' Regulations, but on second thoughts it usually takes a while for dictionaries to incorporate new words, esp. if their use is mainly localized. Next time I'm near a secondhand bookshop I'll wander in and check a few old editions.

Of interest in this discussion is the Australian Army's official stance, which seems pretty clear from their webpage headed 'Anzac Day'. The word appears 20 times in the text as follows:

Anzac: 1 (Australia's desire to recognize the Anzac tradition)
Anzacs: 4 (including: These became known as Anzacs and the pride they took in that name continues to this day.)
Anzac Day: 12 (including: Anzac Day is one of Australia's most important national commemorative occasions.)
Anzac biscuit: 5 (including: The Anzac biscuit is one of the few commodities able to be legally marketed in Australia using the word 'Anzac', which is protected by Federal Legislation.)

The acronym ANZAC appears 3 times, twice in the definition plus one anomaly:

What does 'ANZAC' stand for?
'ANZAC' stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.

What happens on ANZAC Day?
Evidently an error (given the Anzac Day heading and 12 further appearances)

http://www.army.gov.au/Our-history/Traditions/Anzac-Day

[Mike Cecil]

Tony,

Yes, Nazi is listed: defined as a member of the German Nationalist Socialist party.

Interestingly, the next entries are N.B. abbrev, of NOTA BENE, then N.C.O, abbrev, NON-COMMISSIONED officer, so abbreviations (some at least) are included in this version of the Oxford.

So I looked up Radar - not included, but Rad, abbrev of RADICAL, is.

Go figure....

Mike C

[Tony Wheeler]

Originally Posted by Tony Wheeler

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

I was wrong, Oxford lists RM and USMC, but Cambridge and Macmillan don't.

It's possible Oxford lists a few of the more commonly used military acronyms which remain current, like these two and NCO. For example they don't list ANZAC or AIF (except as Asociación Internacional de Fomento, which is part of the World Bank).

[Richard Farrant]

Originally Posted by Tony Wheeler

I was wrong, Oxford lists RM and USMC, but Cambridge and Macmillan don't.

It's possible Oxford lists a few of the more commonly used military acronyms which remain current, like these two and NCO. For example they don't list ANZAC or AIF (except as Asociación Internacional de Fomento, which is part of the World Bank).

Tony,
My Oxford Concise dictionary lists Anzac (that is how it is written) and gives the pronunciation of it "aenzaek", listing it as a noun. The 1990 edition.

cheers Richard

[Tony Wheeler]

Richard, my post refers to the acronym, not the word.

[Marc Montgomery]

I've alway written it as ANZAC as an acronym. If one is a soldier member of the organization it would be " he is an ANZAC soldier"
in the same sense as we always say for example CSIS (Cdn Security Intelligence Service) as in "he is a former CSIS agent.
Without New Zealand,, would it would AAC? or Aac? New Zealand of course should always be capped NZ. like USA..... or how about USAAF..that could be "nouned" but no-one ever does it

I dont think it should be a noun.

Nazi would not be all caps as its not an acronym, but a short form.

Nazi by the way was originally a diminutive of the name Ignaz, (common in Bavaria and Austria) and evolved into a perjorative..as in dummy, or goof. Although it had been used ear
Naso was common in Germany, Konrad Hieden, a well known journalist before the war and Jewish..always used Nazi..knowing its perjorative origins...however it did catch on in Germany but not to the same extent in the rest of the world. I wouldnt be at all surprised if Churchill knew of its perjorative origins.

Communist regime post war, such as DDR. never used the full form "nationalsocialismus" because of a potential connection with their own 'socialismus" and so always used Nazi.

[Dianaa]

If we have Anzac does it also mean we have Cmp?

[Lang]

The use of ANZAC as an official acronym (as opposed to general unofficial usage at appropriate times when Australians and New Zealanders have fought together, such as Vietnam) was not restricted to WW1. When the disasterous WW2 Greek campaign got underway the acronym ANZAC was revived officially for the composite (short lived) formation.

As explained above, using the "word" ANZAC's to describe individual soldiers is clearly wrong. By putting an "s" on the acronym you are talking about both the Gallipoli formation and the Greek formation. The soldiers are described by the "word" Anzac's - clearly derived from the acronym but with an entirely different meaning. I am sure the Anzac biscuit is meant to be eaten by an Anzac soldier and not a supply item for an ANZAC Q Store.

Lang

[Keith Webb]

Originally Posted by Dianaa

If we have Anzac does it also mean we have Cmp?

Don't even go there!

[Lynn Eades]

Keith, Cmp? There are probably a few on here with Cardiomyopathy.

There are some clever buggers here....Unlike some people who make signs.

[Tony Wheeler]

Originally Posted by Dianaa

If we have Anzac does it also mean we have Cmp?

No, you need some vowels if you want to make a word. Like they made jeep out of GP. That became beep for the Dodge so I guess we could make ceep for the CMP. Of course we're probably about 70 years too late, esp. in Australia where it's always been blitz. Not that we need a word for CMP, it rolls off the tongue pretty well.

[Lynn Eades]

Very good 2nd to last post Tony. Thank you for the logical reasoning.