Someone Didn’t Get the Memo
Posted in Scouting News by John E. Pannell on January 22nd, 2007 at 4:29 am Most publications have a style or writers’ guide for their writers and editors. On a basic level it seeks to standardize spellings, punctuation and grammar. In more extreme cases such guidelines seek to incite emotional responses or support a political position — suicide bombers versus homicide bombers, insurgents versus terrorists, pro-choice versus pro-abortion.
In recent years the Order of the Arrow, on a national level, has abandoned the use of lodge numbers. Lodge numbers no longer appear on charters. Lodges register at national events using their lodge name, council name and council number. Announcers and newspaper writers at NOAC were very careful to not use historical lodge numbers. It was as if a memo came down from heaven: Under no circumstances are the lodges’ numbers to be used.
It appears someone did not get that memo. The January/February 2007 issue of Scouting has an article about last Summer’s NOAC. There are many instances in the article where lodges are referred to by their lodge number. In fact, the lodges references are always referred to by number, never using their name!
The author of the article, Jim Lindgren, is a freelance writer so I can understand him writing about lodges in the same way that most volunteers refer to them. I am not criticizing him. However, I was kind of surprised all these references to lodge number were not edited out by Scouting’s editors before the article was published.
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