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'Nobody wants to see this!' Trump vents fury over flags being half-staff for inauguration (www.rawstory.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/usa@midwest.social
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President-elect Donald Trump took to his Truth Social platform on Friday to complain that the American flag will be flown at half-staff for his inauguration due to the period of mourning for the recently deceased former President Jimmy Carter.

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[–] 25 points 2 years ago (4 children)

And "half-mast" is a term only used on ships (that is, things that have masts). On land, where we have flagstaffs (a.k.a. flagpoles), the correct term is "half-staff".

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  • [–] -5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

    In America.

    Edit: it looks like it's time to school some Americans on English, a particularly easy task.

    Let's start with the definition from the Merriam-Webster dictionary, descendant of arguably the definitive American dictionary, certainly one of the first, created by Noah Webster.

    1. A slender vertical or nearly vertical structure (such as an upright post in various cranes).

    Now, from the American Heritage dictionary.

    1. A vertical pole.

    Going farther field, from the Cambridge dictionary.

    A pole that holds a flag.

    Note that both the Merriam-Webster and Cambridge dictionaries list half-mast as related phrases.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    This is an article about two presidents of the United States.

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  • [+] -6 points 2 years ago

    Yes, but the guy being quoted, for all his faults, has done more travelling than the average person, and clearly has picked up some phrases that are more common elsewhere. Not that that really matters, since referring to a flag pole as a mast is still considered acceptable by every dictionary I bothered to check, even the American ones (which I noted in the edit to my previous post).

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago

    Using a dictionary to prove two words are similar is not relevant here. The American terminology is half-staff not half-mast.

    If you had done even some basic research on American flag ceremony and the terminology we use, you wouldn't be so confidently incorrect on the subject.

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