Talk:U.S. Civil War, Origins

What should this article be called? In any case, It Won't Get You Anywhere

Now that Prof. Jensen is gone, could we have a rational disussion about the names of some of the articles?

Why not United States Civil War, origins

American Civil War, origins

Origins of the United States Civil War

Origins of the American Civil War

et ainsi de suite for those people from 1861 Nouvelle Orleans....

Constructive suggestions welcomed.

Although, I'm sure, to quote the title of a marvellous British thriller, ca. 1968, by Desmond Skirrow that I'm rereading for the Nth time, It Won't Get You Anywhere. Hayford Peirce 02:17, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

I shall defer to Russell, but, from my knowledge of the literature of military history, "American Civil War" is far more common than "U.S. Civil War." Even members of the Confederate States of America would probably have agreed to the first, but they certainly didn't see the states as united. I shall observe that the proper docents at the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond do tend to speak of "the late unpleasantness between the states", and, in certain other contexts, one may hear variously of the "War of Yankee Aggression" or the "War to Free the Slaves".

So, I'd lean toward Origins of the American Civil War, with the assumption that all U.S. Civil War articles would be retitled. Personally, I'd prefer "Causes" as more straightforward than "Origins". Howard C. Berkowitz 03:27, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I wasn't thinking clearly" "Causes" is better.... Hayford Peirce 03:58, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Churchill did prefer "gut" to "intestinal". Howard C. Berkowitz 04:05, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

I have been percolating a proposal to put forward a policy on naming conventions which would take us back to English from Encyclopediaeze. To wit, "Causes of the U.S. Civil War." I do not like the "American" adjective as it is more descriptive of the geography and the society than the polity. Further, we can not use out of deference to internationalism the term that is used in the US historical literature: "Causes of the Civil War." The thing I keep stumbling over is the enormity of the task of renaming (moving) all those articles. Russell D. Jones 12:04, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

"American" is really quite common in professional military writing — not universalism, but simple disambiguation from other civil wars (an oxymoron if there is one). Howard C. Berkowitz