The other night, my friend Dave chastised me for using the phrase “Half-Mast” in a previous post. He claimed it was an error on my part, and that the correct term is “Half-Staff”.

A few minutes on Google later, and it seems that “half-mast” is the preferred term in Canada, Great Britain, Australia & New Zealand, while the U.S. considers “half-staff” to be official.

There is an excellent article on the matter at CBC.ca, which reveals that the Globe & Mail Style Book (1998) dissents from the official Canadian usage (“Use half-mast only to refer to ships”).

But the last time I checked, the Globe still insisted on spelling “cigarette” as “cigaret”, which is just weird. It looks retro-futuristic, like how someone from the 1940’s imagined we would spell “cigarette” in the 1980’s.

(Don’t even get me started about The New Yorker’s pretentious use of diaeresis: e.g. preëmptive, coöperate.)