August 07, 2008

From the ICT style guidelines

From a document e-mailed to all Indian Country Today writers:DO NOT use “full-blood” or “full-blooded” in any way, shape or form except in quoted material. A suggested alternative structure: “Keeble is believed to be the first Native of full Sisseton-Wahpeton ancestry to be given the award.”

Capitalize N in Native; lower case i – indigenous and lower case a – aboriginal; generally use American Indian or Native rather than Native American. Interchange American Indian with First Nations when referring to Canadian Natives.

Beadwork, basketmaking, sweetgrass and quillwork are one word. Frybread is one word, as is blackjack. Dream catcher is two words, as is pottery making.
Comment:  So much for the silly claims I occasionally get that Indians prefer "Native American" to "Indian" or "American Indian." Sounds like ICT is following my lead in using "Native" as a good catchall noun and adjective.

The other guidelines are pretty much straightforward. The only one I dispute is writing "dreamcatcher" as "dream catcher." A Google search produces 9,400,000 hits for "dreamcatcher" but only 1,830,000 for "dream catcher" (in quotes). That suggests "dreamcatcher" is the more common and accepted term by 4-1 or 5-1.

In any case, kudos to Indian Country Today for its increased reporting on Indian country. The newspaper used to publish maybe 5-7 articles each week. Now it's more like 15-20 articles per week. This is a huge and welcome amount of coverage for Indians. (You can find all these articles on the ICT website or on PECHANGA.net, of course.)

I'm on the editor's mailing list for writers. He's soliciting writers to do a dozen or two articles per week. If they all make it into print, that'll be impressive.

Below:  A dreamcatcher, not a dream catcher.

2 comments:

writerfella said...

Writerfella here --
Yeah, yeah, yeah -- But what are you going to say, Rob, when writerfella establishes his own term, 'NovaMundian', New World Man? The Sci-fi stories using that term are all but in print. Tick, tick, tick...
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'

Rob said...

I'm going to say "4.5 million Indians couldn't care less what you've published in Redskin, a magazine with a stereotypical and offensive name. 'Indian' will remain the preferred term long after 'NovaMundian' is gone and forgotten. Which will happen a few days after your stories debut and disappear."

Sorry to be harsh, but you asked. If the truth hurts, too bad. Deal with it.

There isn't a chance in hell that "NovaMundian" will replace "Indian." If you disagree, let's bet on whether it becomes established in, say, 10 years. I have $100 that says it won't.