Spin Control: Name change for the Gulf of Mexico may take more than Trump’s signature

President Donald Trump’s decision to ban the Associated Press from certain news events and locales for sticking with “Gulf of Mexico” as the primary title for the large body of water between Florida and Texas raises some potential problems – for the White House as well as for the major news organization.

Trump ordered the change to the Gulf of America with an executive order on his first day in office. The AP, which is a major arbiter of newspaper style as well as an international wire service, declined to go along wholeheartedly. Instead, it lists the older designation first but notes Trump’s preferred name second.

Critics were quick to point out that Article II of the U.S. Constitution does not list “cartographer-in-chief” among a president’s enumerated powers. The country does have a federal office with the legal authority to make changes in things on a map, the U.S. Board of Geographic Names. It was created by Congress in 1947, to oversee names for landmarks or bodies of water within the nation’s boundaries.

The board got involved a few years ago when Americans and Canadians decided to name the inland waterway off Washington and British Columbia the Salish Sea. Technically, that didn’t change the name of the Puget Sound, it merely recognized the ecological connection the sound shares with several other named waterways to the north. The board and its Canadian counterpart accepted the designation after the Washington state and British Columbia boards with local jurisdiction over map names OK’d it.

The board is part of the U.S. Geological Survey, which is in the U.S. Department of Interior, whose boss Doug Burgum is appointed by Trump. So the president is probably in a good position to suggest a change, although the board’s website has a more detailed procedure for name changes than simply signing an order.

Different countries have different names for the same body of water all over the world. What American maps call the Gulf of California, Mexico calls the Sea of Cortez. The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names tries to standardize maps so there’s less confusion, but they don’t have the authority to send the black helicopters to enforce their decisions. The International Hydrographical Organization, headquartered in Monaco, has some weight in deciding things like where the Pacific Ocean ends and the Southern Ocean begins. Maps in some countries disagree, however, and some call the latter the Antarctic Ocean.

In theory, anyone can call any geographic feature anything that suits them, although that could result in a significant amount of confusion. Say for example the state of Montana decided that because more of the Missouri River is within its boundaries than in the state of Missouri, it was renaming it the Montana River for its maps. This could lead to changes along the entire route, down to the Mississippi River, which could face similar changes from Minnesota, where that river starts, to Louisiana, where it flows into what the AP would list as “the Gulf of Mexico, which resident Trump has decided to rename the Gulf of America.”

I am an adherent to AP Style, having had it beaten into me in journalism school by weekly quizzes on the stylebook that were a significant portion of my grade for News Writing 101. Something the White House probably doesn’t realize about AP Style is that it’s very slow to change. In 1973, I was taught that AP Style dictated spelling teen-age with a hyphen and “employe” with only one “e” at the end.

When someone had the bad sense to ask why, he got a muddled explanation about a hyphen needed for compound words with a noun modifying a noun, and how leaving off the extraneous “e” saved a space on the page which would, over time, result in savings of newsprint. The wise guy who suggested the use of the hyphen canceled out the savings of the “e” was assigned to the worst shift on the editing desk.

AP Style gave employee the extra “e” sometime in the 1980s, but AP Style kept teenagers hyphenated until 2005.

If the White House insists on punishing those who don’t adhere to changing the name to Gulf of America, it may have to ban most AM and FM radio stations that play any type of popular music, as well as Spotify and Apple music, because Gulf of Mexico pops up regularly in most genres.

Clint Black, Steve Earle, Jess Williamson, Tracy Lawrence, Sharon Mullins, 6ft Fatso, the Scoundrels and Alabama all have songs with “Gulf of Mexico” in the title. Far as I can tell, none has been rerecorded with the new name.

And it’s not just in titles. A staple of classic rock’s playlist, the Band’s “Up on Cripple Creek,” mentions Gulf of Mexico in the first verse. A favorite of Golden Oldies, Johnny Horton’s “Battle of New Orleans,” has it in the chorus.

The problem for the White House for strictly enforcing compliance is that more things rhyme with Mexico, like go, show, know, no and ago. It would be hard to find a rhyme to fit into “We fired our guns and the British kept a’coming, there wasn’t near as many as there was _____, We fired once more and they begun a running, on down the Mississippi to the Gulf of America.”

Banning that song would be problematic, as it’s generally a tribute to one of Trump’s favorite presidents, Andrew Jackson. The White House staff might want to tread lightly decreeing that all references must change.