User talk:80.229.234.246

Hyphenation of ranks
Certain ranks in the British Armed Forces (Lieutenant-Colonel, Major-General, Lieutenant-General, Sub-Lieutenant, Lieutenant-Commander, Rear-Admiral, Vice-Admiral, Air Vice-Marshal - the jury has always been out on Lance-Corporal, Lance-Bombardier, Lance-Sergeant and Sergeant-Major, with opinions both ways) should still be hyphenated. Lack of hyphenation is a product of ignorance and laziness, especially by webmasters (who are frequently guilty of it, along with many other Americanisms), not of correct British English. The laziness of webmasters or even authors of official handbooks (who are certainly not above it) is not an excuse to change our language - if that were the case we may just as well begin writing American English now and forget British English altogether, since such ignorance is all too common nowadays.

In addition, when deleting information (as in the obliques in rank abbreviations), please remember that Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia and not just a record of current affairs - the information should still be recorded even if no longer correct. -- Necrothesp 22:46, 16 April 2007 (UTC)