At 01:08 PM 10/22/03 -0700, Delirium wrote:
In retrospect I agree partially, and would move towards
using neither
Blessed or Saint. In fact, I would prefer not using titles at all. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_S._Grant for an example of this in
practice (note that it does not start off "General Ulysses S. Grant..." --
even though in this case "General Grant" was in fact a common way to refer
to him before, during, and after his Presidency.
There are a few exceptions, of course. "Saint Peter" should be referred
to as such, because that's the most common way to refer to him (though I
wouldn't object to "Peter the Apostle" either). Popes should probably be
referred to as "Pope John Paul II", because "John Paul II" is not
actually
a personal name, but one adopted with the office. But I don't think this
should extend to all people who have titles.
This is basically the--sensible, I think--approach recommended by Fowler,
decades
ago: start by calling people by the name they're best known by, and
optionally add
others. So Mother Theresa gets listed as that ("Saint Theresa" needs to be
a disambiguation
anyway), and the article should note her birth name as well as the fact
that she was
canonized by the Roman Catholic church in 2003 (other churches also have
saints,
but not the same list--so we need to be specific). Ringo Starr isn't a
redirect to
Richard Starkey, and Gerald Ford is listed as that, not primarily as
"President Ford" or
by his birth name.
--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr(a)redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org