Stumbled upon this historical pile of newspapers over the weekend!

[bus man]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

Shocking that the newspapers used the word "Nip" in those days. I guess they weren't all that keen on professionalism. I suppose they rationalized it as being used for brevity.

In the course of doing some historical research on World War II, I came across a newspaper article that discussed the presence of the Japanese battleship Haruna at the Battle of Leyte Gulf. (This was considered newsworthy because the Haruna had previously been reported as having been sunk before that battle.) It's true, they could have headlined the article:

Japanese Battleship Haruna Participates in Leyte Gulf Battle

But instead, they went for brevity with a clever rhyme:

Nip Ship Haruna in Isle Battle

To be honest, what surprised me in reading newspapers of that day was that most of them maintained enough professionalism to refer to the people of Japan as "Japanese" instead of by a shortened, insulting variant of that word that was in far more common use at the time.

[msgsing]

Years ago I inherited personal belongings from a grandparent who grew up in Jacksonville FL. One of the items was a rather unique newspaper from Civil War Vicksburg Mississippi. It was printed on the back of wallpaper because the city was under siege by Union Forces and among other things in short supply was blank newspaper. Sold it years ago.