Talk:Half-mast

Half-mast or half-staff
The link for this should be called "half-staff." Mast is used only when refereing to a flag flown on a ship.
 * A search of the New York State Governor's website turns up both terms. Schizombie 14:07, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Eh, this is a bitter controversy. The United States Code (Title IV;Chapter 1;§ 7) dealing with the flag uses "half-staff," not "half-mast." http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode04/usc_sec_04_00000007000-.html The Canadians, on the other hand, seem to use half-mast in their government publications, as well as the CBC: http://www.cbc.ca/news/indepth/words/flagflap.html So, given the widespread American usage, plus the fact that the BBC seems to use "half-staff," though "half mast" may also be found, I think the article belongs at "half staff." We do not want to take away our Canadian friends' la différence after all, and make them miss out on yet another chance to bemoan American insensitivity. VonWoland 08:04, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

In the United States Flag Code, it is clearly defined and distinguishes between the two. I hear people use the term incorrectly all of the time. The AP stylebook  distinguishes between the two terms, too.--Cobrapete (talk) 18:09, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Worth noting that the U.S. Flag Code is relatively recent (first adopted 1923), and that American references prior to the 20th Century routinely used the traditional "half-mast" on land as well as at sea. (For example, until 1923, the Department of the Army's official guide to flag etiquette referred officially to flying flags at "half-mast.") The error of calling "half-mast" an error on land appears to have its roots in a false belief that "masts" are only on ships, while in fact many terrestrial structures can properly be called masts, including antennas, light poles, the vertical element of cranes and derricks, and flag masts. (Indeed, even today, if a worker is injured working on a flag pole, OSHA will formally refer to that pole as a "mast" when investigating the accident.)

One of the most famous stories of the American flag comes from the start of the U.S. Civil War, when the halyard on the flag on Fort Sumter was shot through. The halyard jammed in the pulley as the flag fell, arresting the fall of the flag for the remainder of the fight. In the words of the Fort's commander, "God Almighty nailed that flag to the mast." This was a flag mast on dry land, at an Army fort. and Maj Anderson was a well-educated West Point graduate. His usage was correct, the fort had a flag mast, on dry land, owned by the United States Army. In modern times, however, the Army apparently has a severe inferiority complex towards the Navy and fears calling any of its flag masts by their proper name, and calls them all the diminutive "staff" instead. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.227.166.101 (talk) 06:42, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Any chance of having a list of the different times the American flag was flown at half-staff at the White House, say?
 * I suspect that list would be fairly long&mdash;BenFrantzDale 23:27, September 11, 2005 (UTC)

Undue weight and detail to English-speaking countries
Undue weight. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.252.91.110 (talk) 19:31, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

9/11
Can anyone point me to a US presidential proclamation indicating that the flag should be flown at half staff today, 9/11/2005? I get the sense from this page that the president proclaimed the flag should be flown at half staff on 9/11 every year since 2001, but I am unable to find that proclamation. &mdash;BenFrantzDale 23:27, September 11, 2005 (UTC)
 * Answering my own question. The president declared 9/11 as Patriot Day, including that the flag should be flown at half staff. &mdash;BenFrantzDale 23:27, September 11, 2005 (UTC)

Is there a webpage that gives the reason why a flag is flown at half-staff on aany particular day? I was wondering why in the US today, February 1, 2006 it is at half staff. I'm guessing because of the death of Coretta Scott King but I'm not sure. Schizombie 21:48, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
 * The place to get information when the flag is lowered under order of the president is http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/. Otherwise it is left up to each state governor.  Assawyer 23:40, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I searched the NYS Governor's website and didn't turn up anything on why they were at half yesterday. Schizombie 14:07, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
 * What I would do is call the governor's office and inquire if it was an official act or people put the flag at half staff on their own, if you really want to know.Assawyer 15:40, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Half-staff for Princess Diana
I'm a little puzzled by the references to Diana's death in the UK section. How could there be "public outcry" that no flag was flying at half-mast over Buckingham Palace, if flying flags at half-mast was previously unheard of in the UK (even for the death of a monarch)? 217.155.20.163 22:12, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Flying a flag at half-mast over Buckingham Palace was unheard of. The problem was that the public (probably largely whipped up by the media) wouldn't differentiate between the proper protocol to be observed in that particular case (ie, no flag), and the ad-hoc half-masting that was going on elsewhere within minutes of the death of someone who was no longer a member of the royal family (and therefore not entitled to automatic half-masting) being announced. Ghughesarch 15:03, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Does this only happen in Finland?
This is in Finland...

On a normal "no holiday, no celebration" day the flag should not be raised at all (ships, diplomatic vehicles, government buildings etc are a different story).

But when a person who lived in an apartment dies, it's customary for the property manager to hoist all the flags (s)he is responsible for at half staff for the day. Of course the same applies for owners of any kind of house/estate/whatever, but they are definitely forgiven if they forget the task while mourning.

But I do not know what the tradition is when a holiday (say, the Finnish Independence Day) and a death occur on the same day. Any other Finns here to shed some light on this?

Also, after reading the examples it seems no other country has the same tradition; i.e. local half-staff hoist after the death of any person, royal or not. Is this a weird Finn thing? :)

--Shigataganai 00:04, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

half-mast vs half-staff
The article includes this line: "The terms half-staff and half-mast are generally considered synonymous, despite common folk theories that half-mast should be reserved for nautical uses." While maybe most civilians consider them synonymous, they certainly are not. If you mention half-mast on a US Army installation you will be corrected as there are no masts located on the grounds, same as saying half-staff on a boat. It's definitely not a common folk theory. Jr ss r5 17:09, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm from the UK, and I never heard "half staff" before I visited the USA. 24.108.87.94 (talk) 04:26, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

But it's also a case of the Army making up history, since the Department of the Army's own circular on flag protocol titled the practice "Flying Flags at Half Mast" until 1923. One of the most famous masts owned by the Army was that at Fort Sumter. Early in the bombardment of the Fort, the flag halyard was shot, yet instead of falling all the way to the ground, it slid to half-mast, where, according to the officer in charge, Major, later General, Anderson, "God Almighty nailed that flag to the mast, and I could not have lowered it if I tried." It's not clear when or why the Army became ashamed of owning masts and insisted on renaming them all to staffs, but they don't own the English language, even in America, and there continue to be many masts on Army property. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jmputnam (talk • contribs) 18:30, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Half-mast is used in all contexts in Canada. Half-staff is not used. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.183.57.148 (talk) 15:58, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Likewise in the UK, Australia and New Zealand, half staff is never used. The term Half mast is the official and only term used by both civilian and military authorities. From reading the references provided it appears that even in the US it is only the US Army that makes a distinction. I'm unsure of Wikipedia protocol. Do US Military English language terms take priority over International English? Do terms used by one govt dept in one country usually overide the most common terms used throughout the rest of the world? At the moment we have an article with an incorrect title for most of the world, but with an explanantion under the section for most English speaking countries that the article title is incorrect for that country. Might it not be more appropriate to rename the article Half-Mast with a redirect for Half staff explaining under section for the United States that one branch of its govt uses a different term? Brixtonboy (talk) 11:13, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

I've lived in California my whole life and have never heard any term other than "half-mast," and it was news to me when I read this and found out that Americans apparently prefer "half-staff." Perhaps the distinction between them is a special military usage, but "half-staff" is certainly not universally common in the United States. It seems as if the majority of the English-speaking world uses "half-mast" and not even all Americans use "half-staff"--why wouldn't the page be named "half-mast" and explain the technical difference between the two terms, and the fact that in certain contexts (such as a military one) "half-mast" is to be used aboard ships only? Shpowell (talk) 10:41, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Threw open the suggestion to change the article from Half-staff to Half-mast. After three months have only had support for the change so I have done so. Brixtonboy (talk) 12:48, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Confused
The article includes the line "The term "half-staff" is commonly used erroneously to refer to half-mast, although military tradition indicates that "half-mast" is generally reserved to usage aboard a ship, where flags are typically flown from masts.[2][3] Not all English-speaking nations observe this distinction.[4]"

If half-staff is erroneous, and half-mast is refers to ships, what should this be called? Could someone please clarify? Maybe explain the differences between civil and military use if that is the issue, or explain the usage in different countries? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.156.153.42 (talk) 16:00, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Actually, U.S. military tradition supports using "half mast" on land and at sea. "Half mast" was used fairly consistently by both civilian and military officials as recently as 1923, until the adoption of the U.S. Flag Code. Many terrestrial structures are commonly and properly called masts, not just flagmasts but antenna masts, the verticals of cranes and derricks, lighting masts, etc. The notion that only ships have masts is itself an error of language. Jmputnam (talk) 18:45, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

On U.S. Marine and U.S. Naval bases, the term "half mast" is always used.

Half-staff usage outside US? - refdesk query
Please see my query on the Language Reference Desk:


 * WP:RD/L

—Mathew5000 (talk) 15:00, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Grammar problem?
The second paragraph includes this sentence:

According to American literature although military tradition indicates that "half-mast" is generally reserved to usage aboard a ship, where flags are typically flown from masts.

This doesn't make grammatical sense to me. What purpose does the word although serve here? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.17.186.224 (talk) 20:08, 18 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Going through the past revisions, it seems that Brixtonboy did a major edit to clarify that half-staff was an American term, but his unuseful, good-faith edit broke the sentence at the same time and made the sentence into a fragment. It also turned the sentence into a biased POV with the inclusion of "appears to be an American term". The original sentence added before that revision by Brixtonboy is here. I have reverted to the previous and rewrote the sentence to remove any biases in POV. - M0rphzone (talk) 03:10, 26 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Brixtonboy recently moved the article from Half-staff to Half-mast with the comment "Have consulted with other wikipedians and the consensus in talk is that Half Mast is the correct internationally accepted name." In light of this, the following sentence seems a bit strange: "In the US, the term 'half-mast' is commonly used colloquially to refer to half-staff, although US law and military tradition indicate that 'half-mast' is generally reserved to usage aboard a ship, where flags are typically flown from masts." It seems to be written from the point of view that "half-staff" is the normal term. Meters (talk) 18:58, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

US Governors
"The governor's authority to issue the order is more restricted than the president's and does not include the discretion to issue the order for state residents who do not meet the criteria stated."

Some states, such as Minnesota have statutes that extend the governor's authority. Does this supersede federal law? Should this be noted in the article?

Aaron S. Kurland (talk) 13:58, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Article reassessment
I looked at the article assessment backlog at WP:WikiProject_Heraldry_and_vexillology/Assessment and saw that this article had been listed for reassessment about three years ago. I'd like to upgrade it to B class, but it still needs some work before I can do that. While I would agree that the article has grown considerably in scope since it was last rated (in 2006), it continues to need work to bring it up to B class (note the H&V wikiproject does not use a C class). The specific criteria for B class (as far as WP:HV is concerned anyway) are: This article, as it currently stands, fails criteria #1 and #3, as most sections are entirely unreferenced and most others need additional citations, and many sections seem to be placed in random order. I would suggest alphabetizing all sections and adding at least one or two inline citations to reliable sources in each section. I would be willing to pass this article on B class criteria with some lacking citations, but not when some sections lack any references at all. Completely unreferenced sections include: Australia, China, Germany, Greece, India, Ireland, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Zimbabwe. Get some proper references in each of these sections, address the overall structural issues, and we could have a B class article! Wilhelm Meis (&#9742; Diskuss &#124; &#x270D; Beiträge) 03:35, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
 * 1) The article is suitably referenced, with inline citations where necessary.
 * 2) The article reasonably covers the topic, and does not contain obvious omissions or inaccuracies.
 * 3) The article has a defined structure.
 * 4) The article is reasonably well-written.
 * 5) The article contains supporting materials where appropriate.
 * 6) The article presents its content in an appropriately understandable way.

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: not moved. Favonian (talk) 20:37, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Half-mast → Half-staff – This article was originally titled "half-staff." Despite a number of moves over the years, no formal RM has ever taken place. Thus, I feel it should be moved back to the U.S. English term half-staff per WP:RETAIN. Hot Stop talk-contribs 05:33, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Edit to add: From my interpretation of the page logs, the page began at half-staff in March 2005, was moved to half-mast in December 2005, moved back to half-staff in March 2006, to half-mast again in June 2010, back to half-staff in September 2011, and then half-mast in March 2012, where it has remained.    Hot Stop talk-contribs 05:40, 27 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Oppose – While this may be the first formal requested move, much of the above discussion on this talk page is about the title. From that discussion, and the way the article is written, I'd say that if the title and lead focused on half-staff, then it wouldn't be long before someone tagged it with Globalize. As an American, I think that few are aware of the formal official distinctions, and most would view the terms as synonyms. We just don't say "half-flagpole". Isn't mast, uh, flagmast—I can't believe that nobody had created that redirect before now—just a synonym for staff or pole? Even modern ships, which don't have sails anymore, might just fly their flags on flagpoles. I don't think WP:RETAIN applies here. FWIW, an interesting Google Ngram – Wbm1058 (talk) 13:58, 27 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Oppose. "Half-staff" is a useful technical term, mostly in American English, that ought to be more widespread. It is not, however, actually in widespread use, certainly not outside the United States, and not even in colloquial usage inside the United States - the government uses and promotes the term "half-staff", and the media has come around to preferring it, but they will always prefix it with a discussion of how "half-staff" is correct because "half-mast" is technically incorrect. Apart from the government, which has promulgated the "half-staff" term, everyone else in the US tends to just say "half-mast". We should follow, the global, popular usage despite its problems. 172.9.22.150 (talk) 16:30, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Agree --WikiTryHardDieHard (talk) 18:29, 27 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Oppose - I do not think that "half-staff" is necessarily the usual American term. I tend to hear "half-mast" in both Britain and America. Regardless, I don't think there is justification for a page move. RGloucester  — ☎ 20:20, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

U.S. Half-mast list
The list of tragedies in the bullet point that states "when a president proclaims it" is too large, as 1). the list is overly long as is and is just going to get inevitably larger, and 2). it states "such as", as in "a few examples"; the list instead lists every single major tragedy in America since the early 2000s. I suggest shortening the list, maybe to about 2-4 tragedies.

This entire page could also be cleaned up and consitenized, by the way. Pyrotle … the "y" is silent, BTW.  04:35, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Support The length of the last bullet point is not horrible, but it's a bit much. Honestly, this probably does not rise to the level of needing an RfC. Just be bold, unless I'm missing some dispute about this. I suggest keeping one or two of each "type", to be illustrative of the various reasons presidents proclaim things. My suggested list would be:
 * Columbia diaster
 * Indian Ocean tsunami
 * Death of Rosa Parks and John Paul II (one US, one foreign)
 * Fort Hood shooting and Aurora Colorado shooting (one military base, one civilian activity)
 * 50th anniversary of JFK's assassination


 * Also, it seems like there's a pretty heavy recentism bias there. Everything on that list was a presidential proclamation from either Bush or Obama, and most of them are Obama. Might be good to try and mix it up if possible. 0x0077BE  ( talk ·  contrib ) 00:22, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

French flag - Sydney Harbour Bridge
The article states "Australia's Sydney Harbour Bridge flew the French flag at half mast because of the Paris attacks on November 13 of 2015". This is not true. The flags were flown at full-mast although I can't seem to find out why. 110.142.214.120 (talk) 00:41, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

First Amendment
In the section on U.S. custom, there is this line: "There is no penalty for failure to comply with the above law as to enforce such a penalty would violate the First Amendment.[citation needed]"

It seems logical that in a country without a penalty for burning a flag, flying the flag incorrectly would also be legal, but my quick Web search didn't give any explicit citation, but does give this:

https://www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/RL30243.pdf

"Again, the provisions of the Flag Code on flying the flag at half-staff are, like all the Code’s provisions, a guide only. They do not apply, as a matter of law, to the display of the flag at half-staff by private individuals and organizations. No federal restrictions or court decisions are known that limit such an individual’s lowering his own flag or that make such display alone a form of desecration." — Preceding unsigned comment added by EinkomischerKauz (talk • contribs) 17:21, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

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Flags that are newer lowered to half mast
Here Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Somaliland flags are mentioned to be never lowered to half mast. However this is not the case for Afghanistan. NATO in Afghanistan also lowered their flag following 3 June 2017 Kabul bombing. Iraqi flag is also lowered to half mast in 2017. It seems only Somaliland and Saudi Arabian flags are not lowered to half mast practically. However, I am in doubt to remove Afghanistan and Iraq from there. Because I am unsure if these half-mast decisions are made by officials or these nations efforts are inconsequential to prevent those half-mast decisions.

More examples from UN
with keyword "half-mast".--虹易 (talk) 07:53, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Omission of Palestinian Flag
Palestinian Flag not included in list. Abbas approved lowering of flag to recognised Balfour Declaration 1.129.109.161 (talk) 05:09, 14 April 2024 (UTC)