Monthly No More

File this under “Why stop there?”

The esteemed and established 150 year-old Atlantic Monthly magazine is no longer.

Nonono, it’s not going anywhere. It’s just changing its name. You know, like Cat Stevens. Or Jack Napier. Or Cher.

According to the New York Post, the magazine – since it comes out ten times a year – is dropping the word ‘Monthly’ from its title. Very literal people there:

THE Atlantic Monthly already had cut back to a publishing frequency of 10 times a year, but only now is the magazine getting around to dropping the word "monthly" from its corporate identity and officially changing its name to The Atlantic.

Which got me thinking, why shouldn’t other news outlets follow suit?

Like, why can’t CNN just come out and change the name “Larry King Live” to “Larry King” or “The Larry King Show” or “Larry King Tonight,” since the show is sometimes taped earlier and sometimes a rebroadcast of a previous show?

Or, why can’t Fox News consider changing the name of their program “Special Report” to “Fox News Tonight” or the “Fox Daily News?” How special can something be, if it’s a daily show? Just take a look at the definition of special and tell me how it fits?

Or … why are bowling and darts on ESPN? The “S” stands for ‘Sports,’ not ‘Superb Drinking Games.’

If you see anything in need of this writer’s alter ego of Nomenclature Cop – I tried to combat the forces of “Breaking News” this past summer – just pass along an alert.