Futility Closet

Harry S? Truman

Posted in History, Language, Trivia by Greg Ross on October 24th, 2005

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Harry_S._Truman_signature.pngYou can start fights among copyeditors by asking them how to punctuate Harry Truman's name.

The 34th president had no middle name — just the letter S. So the question is, do you add a period afterward? Purists say no, it's not an abbreviation. Pragmatists say yes, if you omit the period then some readers will stop at the "error."

Truman himself usually signed his name with a period, but he once remarked that it should be omitted. That's why, to this day, some newspapers refer to him as Harry S Truman.