Should proper nouns be exempt from local spelling conventions?
Matt Yglesias chastises the FT for renaming his parent organization “Centre for American Progress” noting, “Just because the FT is a British publication is no reason, in my view, why we should suddenly become a ‘Centre’—that’s a proper name.”
But, from a British standpoint, an improper spelling!
I’m not sure what the right course is on such matters. I almost invariably use the British spelling for the UK’s Labour Party, even though many American publications correct it to Labor Party. But how far does one take this? I use Americanized versions of Rome, Florence, Munich, for example, rather than the native Roma, Firenza, and München. Those, too, are proper nouns — and with a hell of a lot more provenance than CAP’s.
