What exactly are white papers? When were they developed? Why "white paper"? How do they relate to "position papers"? We have "white papers" in my profession all the time, in the states as well as internationally, and everytime I read one I wonder why it's called that.

[This message was edited by Kalleh on Tue Jun 24th, 2003 at 21:22.]

M-W traces the term to 1899. Apparently the British published lenthy policy statements and other legalese and called them "Blue Papers" (they had blue covers). Shorter reports were given white covers and were called "White Papers" (The Word Detective). The term has spread to mean any official or authoritative report. OneLook lists seventeen sources.

Look two lines below the search button on the OneLook site, and you will see the words Verbose and Compact. Click on Verbose and see what difference it makes. We had talked about verbiage and verbosity earlier.

Tinman

White Papers are formal documents that are presented to the British Parliament, setting out the options on an area of policy. They are so called because of their white covers. There are also Green Papers, which are less formal, consultative documents.

The meaning has been expanded to cover any official policy document, not just those issued by Parliament.

Official government documents, eh? Is it coincidental that toilet paper is white?

Thanks, Tinman. I should have thought of looking in Word Detective. I had no idea white papers were so old. Many of the dictionary definitions call them "governmental reports", which just isn't the case. Perhaps we should rename nongovernmental reports "yellow papers."

Here's a quote from a medical document:

quote:

A “white paper” (so called because it was originally bound in white) is an
authorative report on a major issue, as by a team of experts. It was written by a “blue ribbon committee”, i.e., an independent commission of non-partisan experts formed to investigate some important governmental issues.

page 5 of 22 (or page 2 of 7 here)

Do you suppose they meant authoritative instead of authorative? Is that just a typo or a conversion error when putting the original document into a pdf?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: tinman,

I am wondering, Tinman, if it's a little like irregardless and regardless. I do find it in the OED to mean "Of the nature of authority, authoritative." Here is the 1645 quote: "Mod. Answ. Prynne's Reply 46 For any authorative power of jurisdiction that Synods..have."

I hadn't even checked the OED, figuring it was just a misspelling, but I have now and it's labeled Obs. rare, and has only one citation from 1645. That would lead me to think it was an error, either in the initial document or in the conversion to pdf. But I've found it in one other dictionary, Wordnik, which gives 20 examples. I still think it's a mistake, though.

Is irregardless a mistake?

In that particular article, yes, it probably was a mistake.