Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style

Is there a guideline about adding "U.S." after Brooklyn, New York?

As here. Thanks. Doug Weller talk 07:54, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Or replacing "United States" after a city,state with "U.S.[1] Doug Weller talk 07:57, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

I think current opinion is "US" rather than "U.S.". One or the other is a good idea in general, but in this case I suspect it will not be confused with this New York 55.0271°N 1.4884°W / 55.0271; -1.4884! Martin of Sheffield (talk) 12:06, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

I believe that it is 'US' in infoboxes, but 'United States' on first mention within the article. In this instance, there seems to be no need for either US or United States to be present. As Martin says, there will be no confusion as to which Brooklyn you are referring.
–Sb2001 ^{talk page} 19:16, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

• As for article titles... See: WP:USPLACE Blueboar (talk) 20:46, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

...and somewhere (please don't make me dig up where) it's specified that references in article text follow the conventions for titles i.e. we don't tell readers that states of the US are in the US; same applies, I believe, to British counties, Canadian provinces, and I can't recall what else. EEng 22:10, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

I think you meant the constituent countries of the UK (England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland) and not British counties (Suffolk, Cumbria, Shropshire, etc.).--Khajidha (talk) 15:45, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Checking Wikipedia: Naming conventions (geographic names), it's more complicated than either but you were closer to the guideline than I was. --Khajidha (talk) 15:51, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Do you mean that you'd write "this species is found in Nebraska" instead of "this species is found in the US state of Nebraska"? I looked through Wikipedia: Naming conventions (geographic names) and didn't find that, but I could have missed it.  SchreiberBike | ⌨  16:53, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

• In the case of New York, I think it's a famous enough city that no disambiguation w.r.t. country is needed. In the case of more obscure cities, there are two cases. In the case of U.S. readers, mentioning the U.S. state would be enough of a clue that it is in the USA, and country-level disambiguation would be unnecessary. In the case of non-US readers, these people would more usually expect the name of the country tro be written as "USA" and not "US". Having the country-level disambiguation text as "US" (or "U.S.) is either superfluous or confusing; either way, it's not helpful. Rhialto (talk) 19:00, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

You're talking about a moot point. For better or for worse, MOS calls for articles to refer to Omaha, Nebraska, not Omaha, Nebraska, US (or USA – doesn't matter, we don't use either). EEng 19:33, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

• We don't need to add this for well-known places with no or low ambiguity (e.g. we can generally just write "London" unless there's a contextual likelihood that some readers will think we mean London, Ontario). Adding the country name when not needed just makes the text awkward and annoying. Agreed we should be avoiding "U.S." unless that's already been established in an article's long-extant text, and to use "United States" in running text but "US" in infoboxes, tables, etc. Most style guides say to use "US", "UK", etc. only as adjectives, in parentheticals, and in tabular data, not in regular sentences as nouns. This is one of the few "the world seems to agree" rules we can import as a commonality matter that we haven't gotten around to, and the lack of it is actually producing some pretty bad style in our articles, as well as a lot of inconsistency (experienced writers familiar with the adjective rule will apply it, while those who do not will tend to abbreviate just because they can). I did an RS analysis of usage of "U.S." (with the dots) a couple of years ago, and it's clearly declining even in US publications. It's probably time to do another one to prove how much it has declined and see if it's time to RfC the matter again and get rid of "U.S.", which causes consistency problems in articles ("a negotiation between the U.S., UK, and USSR"). PS: No one in the US under about the age of 70 uses "USA"; "people outside the US use 'USA' a lot" doesn't matter. Lots of people outside the UK casually refer to the entire UK as "England", but that doesn't make it a good idea in encyclopedic writing. An exception is in sport contexts where USA is the official sporting nationality abbreviation, as it is in the Intl. Olympic Committee codes, but that's a usage for tabular data (and it has other oddities, e.g. Chinese Taipei is the IOC name of Taiwan, with a code of TPE). Finally, there is no "confusion" problem with using "US"; that only arises in ALL-CAPS headlines (and this is reason the "U.S." style has survived at all). WP never uses that style, so the issue doesn't apply here.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  20:46, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

  See #Bold revision of "US and U.S." section, below. I've taken a stab at addressing some of these issues, by revising that section which was years out of date.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  21:36, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Tense for deceased people's names

MOS:TENSE says, By default, write articles in the present tense, including for those covering products or works that have been discontinued. […] Generally, do not use past tense except for deceased subjects, past events, and subjects that no longer meaningfully exist as such. I understand this, no problem; Peter Ostrum is a veterinarian, while William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne, was a British statesman. However, do the deceased still (for lack of a better phrase) possess their names? For example, the first US emperor's appellation is Emperor Norton, or Richard Kollmar's first wife's name was Dorothy Kilgallen? Is the name still "theirs" after they've died? Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky had a patronymic and a family name, or Logan Edwin Bleckley has a unisex name? — fourthords | =Λ= | 20:47, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

His name is Robert Paulson --Deacon Vorbis (talk) 20:59, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Logan's not a unisex name, despite the confusion of a few Americans. A famous female model being named James doesn't make that a unisex name either.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  19:35, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

You stop using your name when you die and people stop calling you by it. If it was a trademark, you'd lose it. It's not (quite), but I still say they "were" who they were, and that's how I normally read it, too. InedibleHulk (talk) 13:04, October 6, 2017 (UTC)

Yup. Agreed. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:23, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Like wise agreeed. If needed, I'd rephrase to use "was named", as that's always past tense as it describes the single event of recieving their name. oknazevad (talk) 13:33, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Dead vs. deceased

InedibleHulk and Primergrey I saw the back-and-forth regarding "dead" and "deceased" and thought I'd suggest an alternative wording. To me, either word works in the wording that is there. How about changing from the way it is now:

• Generally, do not use past tense except for deceased/dead subjects, past events, and subjects that no longer meaningfully exist as such.

to:

(a) Generally, do not use past tense except to describe past events or subjects that are deceased or otherwise no longer meaningfully exist.

or:

(b) Generally, do not use past tense except to describe past events or subjects that are either dead or no longer meaningfully exist.  – Corinne (talk) 15:22, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

"deceased" is more appropriate for professional writing. Using "who" instead of "that" to refer to humans would also be more appropriate. This may require some additional rewriting, because the sentence is trying too hard to use "subjects" to refer both to people and to other subjects of discussion. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:34, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

I'll suggest "Generally, only use past tense to describe past events and dead or non-extant subjects." It's short. But whatever's fine by everyone is fine by me. I don't want to get in too deep here. InedibleHulk (talk) 15:40, October 6, 2017 (UTC)

You're right, Carl, that "who" is better than "that" for humans, but I left it as "that" since "subjects" could include non-human things, including animals, but you are also right that the word "subjects" could be ambiguous, referring either to "human subjects", or to [article] topics. But if we say "dead human beings", that leaves out other dead creatures. Also, although "non-extant" expresses the right concept, I think, if you avoid using the word "deceased" because it is too academic or sophisticated, then we ought not to use "non-extant" for the same reason. The reason I like "no longer meaningfully exist" is that it does not imply that it was once living. It just implies that it once existed. Maybe that's why it was written separately in the original wording.

How about:

(c) Generally, do not use past tense except to describe humans and other living creatures that are now dead, past events, and other subjects that no longer meaningfully exist.

or:

(d) Generally, do not use past tense except to describe past events, humans and other living creatures that are now dead, and other subjects that no longer meaningfully exist.

If you don't like "other subjects", perhaps "other entities".

(e) Generally, do not use past tense except to describe past events, humans and other living creatures that are now dead, and other entities that no longer meaningfully exist.

But I could go along with InedibleHulk's short version, too.  – Corinne (talk) 16:34, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

It's not the sophistication I mind with "deceased", I just find it euphemistic. Carries a notion of departure, passing on or going down. Meant to invoke comforting feelings of an afterlife rather than the grimmer reminders of earthly death. Some say the synonyms are completely compatible in modern English and their Latin roots no longer meaningfully exist. They might be right, generally. But I was raised to hear the difference, and this "bon voyage" stuff still comes across as disingenuously polite to me, even when that's not the intent.

Plus, I like how "dead" is shorter. But really, it's not horribly important if we keep this one. As long as most of Wikipedia uses indisputably plain talk, I'm a happy camper. InedibleHulk (talk) 18:26, October 6, 2017 (UTC)

Version E is good. "Deceased" has been debated many times at WT:MOSWTW, and is consistently rejected as unnecessarily euphemistic and long-winded. "That" is fine in this case, because it includes non-humans like notable racehorses, etc.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  19:30, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

If I remember correctly, deceased is one of those words which is/was expected to apply to people, not animals, so dead is a good all-round word that everyone understands and has no grammatical or semantic complications. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 19:41, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Deceased can't be euphemistic if its only meaning is dead and is being used to mean dead. I noticed a guideline page had been edited to replace a word with an exact synonym. Unnecessary. The only effect was to shorten the section by four letters and one syllable. Primergrey (talk) 23:00, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

That's a made-up distinction that isn't borne out in reality. E.g. "poop" has no referent but one thing, yet remains a euphemism. I think you're trying to draw a distinction between "words that are euphemisms in some innate sense versus those which are not", when the subject here is "use that is euphemistic to avoid being blunt", a completely different matter. We have no reason to say "deceased" instead of "dead" except in certain stock-phrase constructions that require it, e.g. "the property of the deceased", in which "the dead" wouldn't be an idiomatic replacement because "the dead" is a collective noun phrase in English that implies multiple parties.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  04:09, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

perhaps we should consider "pining for the fjords"? power~enwiki (π, ν) 23:14, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

• Comment: Looking at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Words to watch/Archive 4#"Deceased" is much like "passed away", yes?, from 2013, there was no consensus there was consensus that "deceased" is not a euphemism and is fine to use. I stated then that I was fine with it. I still am. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:53, 7 October 2017 (UTC) Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 19:06, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

Passed away is much like deceased in that they are both used as synonyms for dead. They differ, though, in that passed away is a euphemism, while deceased is not. "Euphemism" was erroneously used in the summation of an edit that actually just changed one perfectly good word for another. On a guideline page, why wouldn't I revert that? Primergrey (talk) 03:09, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history#Hyphens in ranks and positions eg lieutenant-colonel

I have raised a question at the link per use of hyphenation in ranks and positions or not - eg lieutenant-colonel, air vice-marshall or attorney-general (or a more military version), deputy director-general, quartermaster-general. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 11:21, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Catholic Church naming conventions RfC

There is currently an RfC at Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(Catholic_Church)#RfC:_should_this_page_be_made_a_naming_convention asking if the proposed naming convention for the Catholic Church should be made an official naming convention. All are welcomed to comment. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:33, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Bold revision of "US and U.S." section

I've been WP:BOLD and updated that section [2] (earlier draft, [3]) to better reflect actual WP editing practice, and 2017 real-world facts. The short version:

• We're clearly defaulting to use of "US", site-wide. Even most American editors are doing this.
• People shouldn't editwar against "U.S." in articles that already have been using it consistently.
• There are good reasons to change to "US" sometimes, especially avoidance of "between the U.S. and the UK" inconsistency.
• The claim that "U.S." is the dominant spelling in North American publishing hasn't been true in years; replace this with an observation that the "U.S." spelling remains common.
• Even news publications use "U.S." mostly in all-caps headlines; an increasing number of them abandon the dots in running prose and do not use them in title-case or sentence-case headlines (though some use it in body copy for consistency with headlines; this is more true of traditionalist publications, though we needn't get into that in MoS). Put gist of this in a footnote.
• Even news publications are wildly inconsistent on this; there is no ENGVAR matter in favor of "U.S.", because the "U.S." style is not consistently used in North American English the way "colour" (vs. "color") is consistently used in Commonwealth English. There is, however, an ENGVAR cases against "U.S." in articles not written in North American English.

What we're missing is an instruction (not just about "US" in particular) to use the abbreviated form only as an adjective, in a parenthetical, and in tabular data – and generally only after the full name has already been given once (other than an infobox might still use an acronym). This is consistent with what many off-WP style guides advise. Some of this is implicit in MOS:ABBR rules, but the adjective part is not. This should be added somewhere, and will markedly improve our writing over time. We far too frequently have lead sentences with things like "and is based in the UK" or "was born in the US".
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  21:32, 6 October 2017 (UTC), revised 03:03, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

Sensible. Tony (talk) 08:59, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

There are lots of unsupported claims in the above. The following claim needs little support: The English language includes no words "uk" or "ussr", but it does include "us". That said, I don't see anything in this change that will prevent me from doing what I've always done - within an article, change the minority to match the majority. If I created an article, it wouldn't prevent me from choosing to use U.S. because it makes more sense and seems more natural to me.
I would object to a change re noun usage without a prior RfC consensus for it. In my experience there is nothing at all uncommon about usage such as "emigrated to the U.S." (or US), and guidance against that usage would seem undue and pedantic to me. Someone might ask the former Beatles if, given the alleged current trend in style guides, they would release a song titled "Back in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics". ―Mandruss ☎ 09:22, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

This isn't an article and we don't cite sources in it. I'm happy to do something of a source dump for discussion purposes, and have started that below. It backs up the revision quite well so far. I took care not to write in do/do not language (other than I made a pre-existing rule against doing "U.S.A.F." more emphatic, because we really do never want that). What people use in vernacular speech and writing is irrelevant, or we'd have lots of "isn't" and "dunno" in our articles. Well-accepted style guides of all sorts have the noun/adjective rule in some form, and I haven't even imposed one, just a suggestion. I do agree an RfC may be needed to get this to "stick", though it could also firm the noun/adjective usage distinction into an actual rule, so be careful what you ask for.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  01:54, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

Sounds all right to me but then, I don't have a parochial interest in the U.S. US. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 10:12, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

Probably worth running an RfC on US v U.S., if only for consistency with other countries (UK, UAE, etc), as you say. I do not agree with you saying that the initialised forms of country names should be treated only as adjectives. This comes back to the issue of WP being reflective of real usage—not only do most people write US/UK ('in the UK' ...), but they say it. (I cannot speck for the US, obviously, but the UK-norm is not to say 'United Kingdom'. It sounds pretentious and snobbish to do so.) Initialisms, acronyms and abbreviations should generally be avoided, but not if they are the WP:COMMONNAME for something, as 'UK' is. –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 13:29, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

@Sb2001: if you look again, SMcCandlish wasn't talking about initialized forms of names as adjectives, but abbreviated names, i.e. "US" (or "U.S.") should only be used "as an adjective, in a parenthetical, and in tabular data – and generally only after the full name has already been given once". Peter coxhead (talk) 14:58, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

That was probably me being unclear. I understand that (well, I think I do: do not write things like 'in the UK', but do write 'UK-based' or 'UK companies'), and my response is that we should not be restricting use of UK, since it is the common name for the United Kingdom. Is the objection with using initialised names at first mention, or anywhere in the article? –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 15:05, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

I don't think there is support for the idea that were are "clearly defaulting to use of 'US'" - I think usage is divided and that's perfectly fine. Neutrality^talk 17:05, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

• Why is everybody talking about US? The name is right there on the cover. :)  --Guy Macon (talk) 17:47, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

Argh! Us likes celebrities. You is a singer. People runs trivia. We is depressing. When will it end? I give up. --A D Monroe III^(talk) 19:07, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

I tried googling "contact us" to ask the editors of the magazine a question, and got all kinds of irrelevant results... --Guy Macon (talk) 19:49, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

You ask "when will it end?" The running time appears to be 2 hours and 15 minutes. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:54, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

BTW, what does Argh! have to do with anything? --Guy Macon (talk) 19:58, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

• If the MoS is going to say: "In American and Canadian English ... US has become the dominant abbreviation for United States," it needs to cite style guides. So far as I can see, U.S. is still the dominant form. The only style guide I know of that says otherwise is Chicago. SarahSV ^(talk) 21:15, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

  Yes, we reference the name of the relevant text, but we do not have in-line citations in the same way as articles. Adding {{cn}} templates is—therefore—unhelpful. You are probably right in saying that it needs to be referenced, as it is quite a large assertion to make. Style guides are perhaps not the right sort of reference, given that it it talking about actual usage, rather than what they advise. –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 00:56, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

  I think I've provided enough source material below, but I really don't care about that wording. No assertion about usage actually needs to be present in MoS at all, if people are going to complain about it or engage in denialism or whatever. The important part is what we want done or not done (default to "US", don't pick fights changing "U.S." to "US" for not reason, don't pick fights by resisting a change to "US" when there is a reason; don't use either abbreviation when it's unhelpful or just crappy writing).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  02:49, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

  Done [4].  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  03:03, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

I'm reverting that immediately. Please review Wikipedia's civility guidelines and Wikipedia policy Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. --Coolcaesar (talk) 00:36, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

No idea who or what that's in reference to.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  02:49, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

Coolcaesar: you have not posted this in the correct section. Feel free to move it (and my comment) to #Bold revision of "US and U.S." section. I do not think that reverting everything was helpful. Coming along all-guns-blazing is going to infuriate editors who have put a lot of time into modifying wording. By all means, join in with the discussion about whether you think the revisions were appropriate, but do not simply revert them when editors are trying to work collaboratively to find the best solution. SMcCandlish knows WP policy very well, especially WP:NOT. I am not sure that that particular piece of policy is the right one to choose. That is exactly the sort of content we need to be including in the MoS. –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 00:53, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

To expand on the point I was trying to make above: This is a major change for which it is necessary to develop consensus first, including repeated posts on the village pump to make sure all interested editors have a chance to opine on the issue.

I write for a living. I skim dozens of newspaper and magazine articles as well as portions of several books every week. It is ludicrous to assert that "the claim that 'U.S. is the dominant spelling in North American publishing hasn't been true in years." The only North American publications where I see U.K. punctuation style regularly are the ones that run Reuters newswire stories without first cleaning them up.

From the perspective of many U.S. intellectuals, myself included, the trend in the U.K. towards dropping punctuation reflects a longstanding trend in British education towards tolerance of sloppy writing. (I have monitored U.K. publications at least monthly for over 20 years, read Chaucer my senior year of high school with a teacher who was a British expat and graduate of Cambridge, and have worked with several British colleagues over the years.) In contrast, most top-tier U.S. research universities maintain grueling first-year English composition courses where freshman students who excelled in the subject in high school are horrified to have their first paper come back with red marks all over it. The same is also true of many U.S. graduate schools. The result is that American English style evolves at a glacial pace, as each generation of intellectuals is rigorously drilled in the style of the previous one. That is not Wikipedia's problem to solve. It is inappropriate to use Wikipedia as a vehicle towards pushing American English towards more rapid stylistic evolution. Wikipedia policy (as crystallized in WP:NOR, WP:V, and WP:NOT) is to follow. We never lead. --Coolcaesar (talk) 01:02, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

If only you knew how strained sounds your claims of expertise, what with the Chaucer and the Cantab and the skimming and the grueling. And lots of us write for our livings. EEng 03:16, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, "I'm an expert on British style and intellectualism because I knew a couple of Brits." Haw.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  04:13, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with British dot-dropping, a habit found primarily in British journalism not other British writing, and affecting classes of things from which others do not drop dots (e.g. changing "e.g." to "eg"). The trend away from using dots in acronyms/initialisms has been world-wide and across languages, and is firmly entrenched in the US and Canada; it did not "rub off" on North Americans from the British. Also, if you're going to come here and start attacking British intellect and education you're likely to be interpreted as a troll. No one is "pushing" AmEng to change here; we only contemplate stuff like this (as at MOS:JR, MOS:IDENTITY, etc.), when the AmEng style guides themselves are reflecting a real-world shift in AmEng usage.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  02:49, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

Sourcing

I'll get this started, using the stack of style guides closest to my desk (leaves out some stuff like Scientific Style and Format, and Butterfield's ed. of Fowler's):

• "10.4", "10.33". The Chicago Manual of Style (16th ed.). University of Chicago. 2010. pp. 489–490, 500:. 10.4: Periods with abbreviations. ... Use no periods with abbreviations that appear in full capitals, whether two letters or more, and even if lowercase letters appear within the abbreviation: VP, CEO, MA, MD, PhD, UK, US, NY, IL .... 10.33: "US" versus United States. In running text, spell out United States as a noun; reserve US for the adjective form only (in which position the abbreviation is generally preferred). See also 10.4. US dollars, US involvement in China, but China's involvement in the United States.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link) It has a side rule to use "U.S." in publications that use "traditional" US state abbreviations like "Ill." and "Calif.", but WP is not one of these, and CMoS recommends against the practice anyway. This edition's material on this is a reversal from the 15th ed. which still favored "U.S." Notably, MoS began when CMoS 15th was current, and has seen extensive revision over time to match the 16th (as it has also been being updated to match post-2010 editions of New Hart's Rules / Oxford Style Manual and Fowler's, etc., as the rest of the world does.
• "10.31", "10.32". The Chicago Manual of Style (16th ed.). University of Chicago. 2017. pp. 573–574, 585–586:. 10.4: Periods with abbreviations. ... Ues no periods with abbreviations that include two or more capital letters, even if the abbreviation also includes lowercase letters: VP, CEO, MA, MD, PhD, UK, US, NY, IL. [Also has the previous edition's rule to prefer "U.S." with "Ill." abbreviations.] 10.31: Abbreviating country names. Names of countries are usually spelled out in text but may be abbreviated in tabular matter, lists, and the like. [Recommendation to consult dictionaries for abbreviations rather than making up new ones.] ... Certain initialisms, on the other hand, may be appropriate in regular text, especially after the full form has been established .... 10.32: "US" versus "United States." Where necessary, initialisms for country names can be used in running text according to the guidelines set forth [in previous sections about overuse of abbreviations, etc.] Note that, as a matter of editorial tradition, this manual has long advised spelling out United States as a noun, reserving US for the adjective form only (where it is preferred) and for tabular matter and the like. In a departure, Chicago now permits the use of US as a noun, subject to editorial discretion and provided the meaning is clear from context. US dollars, US involvement in China, China's involvement in the United States or China's involvement in the US.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link) Brand new edition; hasn't had much real-world impact yet. CMoS has clearly softened on its stance about nouns.
• Burchfield, R. W., ed. (2004). "acronym". Fowler's Modern English Usage (Revised 3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. pp. 17–18. Gives no explicit rule but uses "US", "UK", "USSR" style throughout, and says of things like "U.N.E.S.C.O." that this is an intermediary stage in adoption of an acronym. This material is a bit dated; we don't actually do it that way any longer; a newly introduced acronym will appear as SNRKL not "S.N.R.K.L." in most publications. Burchfield also favors the confusing practice of writing true acronyms as if words and capitalizing their first letter even if they're not proper names, e.g. "Aids" for AIDS; this practice seems not to have caught on except among some British/Commonwealth news publishers, and I think one or another of stylistically weirder American publications (New Yorker, maybe? New York Times, but not consistently).]
• "1.6: Abbreviations". MLA Handbook (8th ed.). Modern Language Association. 2016. p. 95. Use neither periods after letters nor spaces between letters for abbrevaitions made up predominantly of capital letters: BC, DVD, NJ, PhD, US. Has no noun/adjective rules but urges (on the same page cited here) reserving abbreviations for tabular data, citations, and other compressed material.
• "8.3: Geographic Names". MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Writing (3rd ed.). Modern Language Association. 2008. pp. 264, 269. [S]pell out in the text the names of countries, with a few exceptions (e.g. USSR). In documentation, however, abbreviate the names of states, provinces , countries, and continents. [List of abbreviations begins] ... US, USA: United States, United States of America Does not include "U.S.", nor a noun/adjective rule.
• "7: Shortened forms". Style Manual of Authors, Editors and Printers (5th ed.). Australian Government Publishing Service. 1994. pp. 107, 116–117. 7.5 Abbreviations that consist of more than one capital letter or of capital letters only are written without full stops: ACT, RSPCA, PhD, GPO, IBRD, USA. ... 7.7: Acronyms ... Acronyms are written withouy full stops. 7.67: The names of coutnries, except for the former Soviet Union, which is usually designated USSR, should be spelt out in general text. For example: The United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Japan have agreed ... not The UK, the USA, Australia, NZ and Japan have agreed .... For text, this rule should be waived only in heavily statistical or greatly condensed scientific work. 7.68: In text that uses many shortened forms, the standard abbreviations for name of countries may be used adjectivally: UK tariffs have ...; In her study of NZ foreign policy ..... 7.69: Standard abbreviations for names of countries are used in tables, figures, notes, references and bibliographies, where space considerations are important: UK, USA, Statistics Act 1975 (NZ), s 37. There may be a newer edition out now; last time I looked it was still in production, but that was a few years ago.
• Hull, Christine A.; Huckin, Thomas N. (2008). The New Century Handbook (4th ed.). Longman / Pearson Education. pp. 810, 872. 48d: Avoid common misuses of periods. ... Do not use periods with acronyms and other all uppercase abbreviations. [Emphasis in original.] The recent trend is not to use periods with common abbreviations for states, countries, organizations, computer programs, famous eople, and other entities: CA, NOW, MIT ... USA, MS-DOS, JFK ... HTML, AAA .... 56e: Avoid most other abbreviations in formal writing. Place names, including the names of states, countries, provinces, continents, and other locations, should not be abbreviated except in addresses and occasionally when usd as adjectives (for example, in US government). Uses dot-free acronyms throughout, except for latinisms (e.g., p.m., i.e.). Specifically illustrates
• Waddingham, Anne, ed. (2014). "10.2.4. All-capital abbreviations". New Hart's Rules (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 174. Acronyms and initialisms of more than one capital letter take no full points in British and technical usage and are closed up: TUC, MA, EU .... In some US styles certain initialisms may have full points (US/U.S.). There isn't an adjective/noun usage distinction maintained in New Hart's.
• Ritter, R. M., ed. (2005). "10.2.4. All-capital abbreviations". New Hart's Rules (1st ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 170–171. Acronyms and initialisms of more than one capital letter take no full points in British and technical usage and are closed up: TUC, MA, EU .... US English uses points in such contexts: U.S., L.A.P.D., R.E.M. This was wrong even when it was published; the two leading US style guides (CMoS for academic writing, and Associated Press Stylebook for journalism) were already condemning this, and dominant usage of "LAPD" is provable in seconds [5] by an N-gram constrained to US English and the decade leading up to publication of Ritter's book. Ritter's comment appears to be material left over from the 1980s Hart's Rules, when it might have been closer to accurate. "REM" in the sleep sense has been absolutely dominant without periods for decades [6], and in the case of the band name, it's a proper name (also from the '80s) styled however the band likes (the band consistently used the dots, but the press did not [7]).
• Garner, Bryan A. "U.S.; U.S.A". Garner's Modern English Usage (4th ed.). Oxford University Press. As shortened forms for United States, these terms retain their periods, despite the modern trend to drop the periods in most initialisms. ... U.S. is best reserved for use as an adjective <U.S. foreign policy> although its use as a noun in headlines is common. In abbreviations incorporating U.S., the periods are typically dropped <USPS>, <USAF>, <USNA>. Garner seems (at first; see next entry) the primary hold-out in the style-guide world for "U.S.", and does not even acknowledge the usage shift, or that non-US usage might differ. This is weird because the current edition is taking pains to be more descriptive (even extensively using N-gram data) with hundreds of entries updated with usage-shift info; this entry was not updated. Whether this represents Garner not getting around to it or studiously avoiding it is anyone's guess. Despite being published by Oxford, this is a thoroughly American work, and Garner is not a linguist but a lawyer, steeped in legal writing (he's the editor or author of various works on legal writing); it's a register that in the US always uses U.S. except in longer acronyms like USAF. See next entry, however.
• Garner, Bryan A. (2016). The Chicago Guide to Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation. Chicago University Press. p. 388. 537. Use a period to indicate an abbreviated name or title. (The salutary trend, though, is to omit periods with acronyms and initialisms—hence BBC ...) I looked at every page the index said had anything to do with abbreviations, acronyms, initialisms, the period, proper names, and proper nouns. There's nothing about "U.S.", nor did I see it used in the prose while skimming, and he uses "UNESCO"-style throughout. This may be evidence that the entry in GMEU, above, simply didn't get updated since the last edition, or it may reflect editorial changes made by someone at the respective publishers; no way to really know.
• Williams, Malcolm (1997). Bucens, Vitalijs (ed.). The Canadian Style: A Guide to Writing and Editing (Revised and Expanded ed.). Public Works and Government Services Canada Translation Bureau / Dundurn Press. pp. 20, 25, 30, 55. 103: Periods. In recent years there has been a trend toward omission of periods in abbreviations. This is particularly true of scientific and technical writing, but the practice has been spreading in general writing as well. a) Do not use periods with the following: [Emphasis in original.] ... abbreviations or acronyms consisting exclusively of upper-case letters or ending in an upper-case letter (except those for personal names, legal references and most place names), e.g.: NAFTA, PhD, YWCA, UN, GST, MiG, CTV. (b) Use periods with geographical abbreviations, e.g. B.C., P.E.I., but not for the two-character symbols recommended by Canada Post. This appears to be self-contradictory, since the CP two-letter symbol for British Columbia is in fact BC. This seems to imply using U.K., U.S., etc., but US is used on p. 30, then U.S.A. on p. 55. So, I give up on what they really want. Regardless, it doesn't actually appear to reflect typical, current Canadian style (it is 20 years old); I lived there in 2005–2006, and did not regularly encounter "U.K." and "U.S.A."
• "Chapter 4. Abbreviations". Editing Canadian English (2nd ed.). Editors' Association of Canada. 2000. pp. 51–52. Geographical designations: ... 4.19. Abbreviations for names of countries can be used in special circumstances (tables, charts, lists). In text copy, names are usually spelled out. ECE provides no rule against using dots, and illustrates US/U.S. and UK/U.K., even USSR/U.S.S.R.. However, in the preceding sections on acronyms (§4.8) and initialisms (§4.9) it uniformly illustrates all of them without dots, a clear preference. It has no noun/adjective rule.
• Hacker, Diana (2006). "38a. The period". The Bedford Handbook (7th ed.). Bedford / St. Martin's. p. 423. In abbreviations: ... A period is not used with US Postal Service abbreviates for states .... Current usage is to omit the period in abbreviations of organization names, academic degrees, and designations for eras. So, doesn't state a country rule, but illustrates use of US.
• AMA Manual of Style: A Guide for Authors and Editors (10th ed.). American Medical Association / Oxford University Press. 2007. pp. 334, 451. 'When not to use a period: ... [D]o not use periods with honorifics (courtesy titles), scientific terms, and abbreviations .... JAMA, NIH ... 14.5: Cities, States, Counties, Territories, Possessions; Provinces; Countries. At first mention the name of a state ... or country should be spelled out when it follows the name of a city. [Elided long note that JAMA doesn't do it with "United States" after US places only because its readership is largely American.] ... Names of cities ... and countries should be spelled out in full when they stand alone. ... Abbreviations such as US and UK may be used as modifiers (ie, only when they directly precede the word they modify) but should be expanded in all other contexts. The authors surveyed representative samples of urban populations in the United States and United Kingdom according to US and UK census data. Uses "US" throughout. [Aside: This passage is, incidentally, proof of use of ie for i.e. in a US style guide; along with frequent use of i.e. in British publications that aren't newspapers, that kills the bogus ENGVAR argument for ie that we were seeing here about a month ago.]
• "4. Abbreviations". MHRA Style Guide (Third [corrected] ed.). Modern Humanities Research Association. 2015 [2013]. p. 31. 4.4: Use of full stop ... Full stops are omitted in capitalized abbreviations or acronyms for: ... (b) Countries, institutions, societies, and organizations (none of them italicized): UK, USA, BL, BM, UNAM .... [Aside: This publication is proof of use of Oxford spelling ("the Oxfrod -ize") in British publications besides those of Oxford University Press. It also calls for Latinisms to retain dots when abbreviated: i.e., e.g., and so on]
• Style Guide for Business and Technical Communication (5th ed.). Franklin Covey. 2012. Self-inconsistent and confusing. The chapter on abbreviations gives all acronyms and initialisms in RAM and GNP style, but in an abbreviation list wants to not only use U.S. but to use U.S.A. to mean United States of America versus USA to mean United States Army; that's a "diff-caps" approach that is far too assumptive of the reader being in lock-step with the writer's intent for us to use it here.
• American style guides dating to the 1990s and earlier are more apt to use (and sometimes have a rule in favor of) U.S., e.g. the ACS Style Guide from that era.
• In academic American style guides this appears to be rare now; the only semi-recent one I can find so far in favor of U.S. is Publication Manual of the APA (5th ed.). American Psychological Association. 2001.. It otherwise uses UMI-style acronyms/initialisms throughout (it gives U.S. as a special exception). It also has the adjective rule for it. No idea what the more recent edition says; the 6th dates to 2009, and I have one around somewhere.
• US legal style guides use U.S. consistently, because this is the style required by most of the courts that have issued style requirements for legal filings, and is also the preference of the US Government Printing Office's manual, which means that regulatory agencies (which whom lawyers often have to communicate) also use it.
• I found one 2005 work, The Cooper Hill Stylebook, 2nd ed., still advocating dots in all acronyms and initialisms.
• The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation, 11th ed. J. Strauss et al., doesn't appear to address the matter, though it seems to give acronyms and initialisms throughout in no-dots, all-caps, no-spaces style.
• The AMA Handbook of Business Writing, American Marketing Association, 2010, appears to be agnostic on dots with initialisms and acronyms, and doesn't address country names in particular.
• Journalistic style is all over the place, and contradictory. Many news publishers (especially those who employ all-caps headlines) use U.S. in headlines but not in running text; others use U.S. all the time (e.g., the United Press International Stylebook (which no one follows but UPI); others don't use it at all, including most non-North American news publishers; and the Associated Press Stylebook (2013 edition, the most recent I have around) strangely recommends to use U.S. in body copy but US in headlines (probably because it recommends against all-caps headlines but for maximal headline compression).
  • Some are pretty nutty about it; e.g. the Wall Street Journal Essential Guide to Business Style and Usage, 2002, say to always use U.S. and never give United States, except "in quotes or for special effect". That's obviously not an encyclopedic writing style.
  • An even more crazy example is the New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, 5th ed, 2015, which says "U.S. for United States, but only in headlines, summaries, tables and charts, and when unavoidable in picture captions." Seems like AP Stylebook, right? But then it insists on URL but U.S.A.I.D., U.S.S.R., V.A.; then VC and VCR; but a surprise dodge to Unicef and Unesco, yet U.N.; and finally has a total meltdown: "U.N.AIDS (no spaces) for the United Nations program on H.I.V. and AIDS." Wow. There's just no rhyme or reason to this at all. Pretty much no one else in the world would contemplate writing "U.N.AIDS", much less "H.I.V. and AIDS", or "U.N." then "Unesco".
• News search: Just doing a Google News search clearly demonstrates a preference for "US" even in American publications, though as noted above particular vary all over the place, with "U.S." sometimes used in main text and not headlines, or vice versa, or not at all, or in both. Google Ngrams can't used for this to check out book usual, unfortunately, as they processed "U.S." and "US" as synonymous and merged them.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  02:06, 8 October 2017 (UTC)
• I recall from previous digging that some business-English guides other than that of the Am. Mktg. Assn. also favor "U.S." Marketing ones, which are otherwise similar on many points, tend not to, because they deal with a lot of fancy logo typography, and know that dots in abbreviations in signage and ads impair quick reading when they're superfluous.

This is just a start, though it took several hours and I'd rather not do more unless really necessary.

Conclusion so far:

"US" is dominant in English generally. "U.S." is still present aplenty in North American writing, but its usage is wildly inconsistent in American news publishing (even opposite from publication to publication as to whether it's used in headlines vs. body copy), now eschewed in academic publishing (what MoS is almost entirely based on), though found consistently in US legal writing. There's no recent style guide evidence that the dot-bearing spelling is preferred in Canada (the stuff that favors it is also from the '90s); the 2000 Canadian source doesn't favor "U.S." The rule to abbreviate adjectival but not noun use is common but not universal, and may be eroding (CMoS thinks so); however, various guides that do not have this rule instead do not want country names abbreviated at all except in tables, citations, etc. Some just do not really care, though. [Side observation: All these sources in favor of acronyms and initialisms in the form UN and FBI are also in favor of no dots in PhD and other degrees and titles. A semi-recent RfC on that closed without consensus as I recall, because no one did the style-guide research. If it comes up again, the sources in the above list can be used to ensure a closure with consensus for dropping the extraneous dots.]
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  01:54, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

Your list mixes up different nationalities, and includes style guides that don't say what you're claiming. Can you post below three or four American or Canadian style guides, with page numbers, that advocate US over U.S.?

For example, I'd like to see the advice from the Canadian Press Stylebook and Associated Press Stylebook, which are used by lots of publishers, not only newspapers. I have these, and they don't say what you claim, but I don't own the latest editions, so perhaps they have changed. The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage doesn't advocate US. I notice that the Globe and Mail in Canada still uses U.S. (in articles not only in headlines). SarahSV ^(talk) 02:08, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

The lead-in wording in the MoS edit that you questioned doesn't even exist any longer so this may be moot. Anyway, my source list doesn't "mix up" anything; it includes material to get a fuller picture, on multiple issues: 1) whether a special exception for "U.S." is being maintained in sources (and which ones if so); 2) whether a claim is being made that American English favors dots generally (if so, where it is coming from); 3) whether an adjective-versus-noun or other restriction on use of the abbreviated form is being advocated; and others. One of these is a question for which US-focused style guides are more relevant, but the others are not. If all I did is list style guides that agreed with me, I would obviously be WP:CHERRYPICKING, which would not be very informative or good-faith, would it? I already have AP Stylebook in the list. Same with NYT, including an illustration of how radically inconsistent it is from entry to entry. I don't have a current (only late '90s) Canadian Press Stylebook; since you do, please quote the relevant material from it. Odds are it will favor "U.S." either in headlines or body copy, perhaps both, but probably not neither, since statistically that's a common loose pattern across all North American journalism (i.e., "U.S." is often in there somewhere, but which publisher does what with it varies from paper to paper). It appears to be another journalism versus academic register matter, though it is rapidly disintegrating; what used to be markedly consistent use of "U.S." in journalism has completely splintered. No one suggested that any particular individual newspapers like Globe and Mail have completely abandoned "U.S.", so I'm not sure why you mention that one in particular. I provided a Google News search that shows that every usage combination you can think of is in play in news.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  04:38, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

Can you post below a few North American style guides, apart from Chicago, that advocate US? No commentary, please, just the titles and page numbers, so that I can look them up. SarahSV ^(talk) 05:02, 8 October 2017 (UTC)