It's not just one team or one sport. I see athletic jerseys everywhere including "Junior" after last names. This man's "junior" status references his father's first name; he is a Paul Junior or David Junior or such, not Forbes Junior. If it applied to the last name, we would all be "juniors."
Oh, the agonies of being an English major in this modern world.
I'm not sure that's true - If you have father and son in the same profession, then they're gonna have the same surname, and then it's helpful to tag a Jr. on. And you get some relatives with multiple identical names, giving John Smith and John Smith Jr. Or you can flag the Senior as well or instead.
ReplyDeleteI see nothing wrong with having Jack Forbes and John Forbes in everyday life (no need for a Jr), but Forbes and Forbes Jr in surname-only contexts, and that /could/ be what's happening here. Wouldn't swear to it - sportsmen ain't English majors, and they could well have it wrong, but I can't be certain without knowing what other Forbeses are out in the wild.
I don't have a standard style guide for this blog and will concede to anyone who has a reputable one, but my best guess would be that if the two people you named were in a directory, or in listed in a group of contributors to something, the names would appear as
DeleteSmith, John
Smith, John Jr.
rather than
Smith, John
Smith Jr., John
They would be listed as in your first case, or with an extra comma between John and Jr., but that's because titles of that form are listed last anyway in a directory, so I don't think that helps either way. Jr, Sr, III, Esquire... all go at the end. (When you have several, the Books of Breeding will tell you what precedence order they should go in. Medals, fellowships, titles, religious titles, all of these jostle for position.) Jr and Sr are interesting because they're optional clarifiers, not formal titles, and if you decide to use one, it's your name, so you do get some flexibility in how it's used. Similarly anyone can be an Esquire instead of a Mr if they want to be. If you want to mess with the system, imagine two guys both called John Smith Jr. I don't know what you do then :-)
DeleteCan you watch less sports?
ReplyDeleteOr, write a one page letter to the president of the NFL, explaining the grammar issue, and how them being wrong is affecting millions of viewers all over the world, and wouldn't they like to take the lead and be correct in their grammar? "write" means on paper and mailing the letter - not email.
You mean I should actually try to SOLVE the problem?
DeleteNo, of course not. The standard procedure in this country is to endlessly complain about what's wrong, not to actually DO anything.
I would rather do something - either myself, or act so someone else does.
Delete'Millions of viewers' perhaps, but I question 'all over the world'.
ReplyDeleteI have never known of anyone watching American Football outside of America.
You could just Google it -
Deletehttps://www.nfl.com/news/global-audience-of-more-than-56-million-watch-super-bowl-lvii
Speaking from the UK, it's very much a minority sport here, but we get plenty games on UK cable and satellite services. And live MNF on a free-to-air channel. And, of course, three NFL games in London every season. Minority but still big.
DeleteWhat gets me is when people want to write whoa but spell it woah. Woah would be pronounce WOH-uh. Also, yeah. Yea goes YAY. Yeah is yeah. One thing many of these wrong words have in common is, they're mainly used by the spectator sportsball game type.
ReplyDeleteas a fellow english major do you know a single major sports announcer who ever heard of or used an adverb? constantly drive me crazy by stating "got to get rid of the ball QUICK" and many other crimes against the english language (first post/constant lurker/love your site)
ReplyDeleteMy grandad used "Jr." right up until his death, LONG after his father died. The rule is, indeed, supposed to only differentiate the first names, so long as a possible misidentification is possible. One source of etiquette I read years ago said, essentially, that once the father died, the son reverts to the base name, but that is no longer followed, at least in the US.
ReplyDeleteWhen my grandfather died my dad asked if he should drop the JR. from his name. I was in third grade, so I told him to keep it. Seemed important then. That was 35 years ago. Perhaps I'm tell him to drop it tomorrow.
ReplyDelete