[el_magnifico]

Anita. Yes, Anita. It just so happens to be that in Spanish, Anita is diminutive for Ana (Anna in English), and while one would always call his/her friend/familiar/spouse/significant other Anita, using it in a formal situation, as is addressing someone in the chain of command, would be considered of bad taste and even plainly disrespectful in all or at least most of the hispanophone cultures. Plus, it could be construed as sexist if a man does it in such a situation. What I'm trying to say is, I could call my cousin "Annie" any day (he he) and get away with it, but I wouldn't call my boss "Annie" if I want to keep my job.

Don't take me wrong, I'm grateful with you all for putting a presumably Spanish descendant* in such a prestigious place in the GTVA military, and describing her in such positive terms. It kind of helps with the immersion, giving the impression of the GTVA being an international force a la Star Trek instead of the usual "America IN SPACE" of many other fictions nowadays.
But then you call her "Anita" and you throw suspension of disbelief out of the window! 

Was it an oversight? Was it done intentionally, to reinforce the concept of her being regarded as someone her crew can correlate with, a maternal figure of sorts? Was it done for rule of cool (I'm the first in admitting "Ana López" just feels too plain and common)?

*: López is quite a common surname in the Spanish language, originally being a patronymic for Lope.

[General Battuta]

My fault entirely. All we can do is chalk it up to cultural drift over the next few centuries - maybe it's appropriate in her timeframe the way 'Bob Dole' is appropriate today.

[SypheDMar]

Yeah, there's been several "cultural drifts" running around in BP. I can suspend my disbelief since the story is so awesome.

[redsniper]

Maybe her first name is English and only her last name is Spanish. Mixed heritage. It's the space future after all.

[Dragon]

In Polish, there are several "normal" names which come from diminutives of older names. For instance, a diminutive to "Jakub" is "Kuba", which also functions as a separate name. There are more examples like this, it does create a bit of confusion sometimes. English also might have such cases, but I can't remember any ATM. It wouldn't be surprising if this happened to "Anna" and "Anita" in the future, especially considering English (in which Anita is a normal name) influencing the entire world.

[el_magnifico]

Fair enough.

[Phantom Hoover]

Yeah, it's taking nitpicking to an extreme to demand that every rule of etiquette remain unchanged for over 3 centuries.

[headdie]

errr, 1 month necro

[Phantom Hoover]

I don't care, it's one of the first 10 topics on the board. I don't get why people on bulletin-board fora are so obsessed with this.

[The E]

I don't care, it's one of the first 10 topics on the board. I don't get why people on bulletin-board fora are so obsessed with this.

I can tell you why. Forum Netiquette says that bumping old topics (and yes, more than a month of inactivity counts!) is only permissible if you have something substantial to add, or if the topic is assumed to be an "always current" sort of affair (in other words, stickied).

The reason for this is that it's assumed that if noone posts anything in a topic for a given amount of time, the people involved have moved on because whatever the topic was about, it's been resolved to everyone's satisfaction (or, alternatively, everyone involved is sick of it).
By bumping the topic, you force people to reaquaint themselves with whatever was discussed; this is not a big deal if your bump was for something substantial, but if you do it just to say "I agree" or some other content-free crap (which you did), people might get pissed.

[Phantom Hoover]

I don't feel that any of that applies when the thread in question is in an inactive board.

[headdie]

I don't feel that any of that applies when the thread in question is in an inactive board.

since when is the BP board inactive?

[Darius]

This thread is now inactive.