Or maybe it’s already too late for that. Still, here’s my take on the squalls blowing around yesterday’s announcement on the website-once-known-as-Mormon-Newsroom (now it’s simply “Newsroom,” although the URL still contains the word “mormon”). You’ve seen it ad nauseam, but I’m pasting it here to make the context easier for anyone reading this a year from now:

President Russell M. Nelson of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has made the following statement regarding the name of the Church:

The Lord has impressed upon my mind the importance of the name He has revealed for His Church, even The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We have work before us to bring ourselves in harmony with His will. In recent weeks, various Church leaders and departments have initiated the necessary steps to do so. Additional information about this important matter will be made available in the coming months.

See the updated Newsroom style guide, which provides direction on how to properly refer to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In the coming months, Church websites and materials will be updated to reflect this direction from President Nelson.

I want to untangle some of the threads of response to this announcement.

First, it’s hard to know exactly to whom this announcement is directed. Because it is published in a place overwhelmingly directed to journalists – journalists writing for the public primarily outside of Church membership – and because it points to the Newsroom’s updated Style Guide, it would seem to be a request primarily directed to those journalists: This is how we want you to refer to us.

But the text of the announcement itself would seem to be directed primarily to members of the Church and our internal references. We (whether “we” means Church leaders like President Nelson, or the general membership of the Church) do not usually ask or expect or direct the wider world to take specific action couched in revelatory terms (“the Lord has impressed upon my mind”). Even when the broader world is invited to follow Christ, basing a call for very narrow and specific action is generally reserved for internal Church consumption. It even states that its implementation so far has been within the Church.

So who is the intended audience: Internal? external? both?

Second, the immediate social media response took several forms, some benign, some malignant.

A. Humorous, but generally harmless. My first awareness of this announcement came from a Facebook friend chuckling over the irony of a request not to use “Mormon” as a reference to the Church or its people or its doctrine coming from a website identified as the “Mormon Newsroom.” There was some immediate joking about renaming the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the “I Am a Mormon” campaign, and some self-deprecating humor by bloggers or podcasters whose names include the word Mormon. All intended in fun, acknowledging the difficulty that stands in the say of following such a directive.

B. Humorous, perhaps, but with a negative bite. These initial jokes quickly moved into a darker vein. Whatever online Mormon (yes, I’ve consciously chosen to use that word here) community you feel comfortable as your own, there are other online communities that you consider suspect for one reason or another. The second wave of jokes was aimed at other communities than those of the jokesters: “Ha ha, So-and-So will have to change their name! They’re going to hate that!”

C. Responses that missed the point, or went beyond it. I found many such responses in the comments on the Newsroom’s Facebook page; you may have found them in your Facebook or Twitter feeds, or elsewhere. Comments like, “ I am so thankful that The Lord has blessed us with such faithful and obedient True and Living Prophets in ancient days and now in Latter Days, to lead and guide us through revelation.” clearly responded to the revelatory language and understood the announcement as one governing “us” without any seeming awareness that it was presented in a forum directed at “them.” Further, responses like this completely ignore the substance of the announcement – “please follow these wording choices” – and instead bear testimony to a general religious principle: We thank thee, O, God, for a prophet. I say these responses miss the point because they are equally applicable, or inapplicable, to any statement by a high-ranking Church leader, regardless of topic or audience.

D. Responses that weaponize the statement. These are responses that have little or nothing to do with the content of the announcement but instead attack the responses of others. There are comments that fault supposedly faithless members (“Why is this even a discussions? The Prophet said he received this as word, so that’s the word, why the grumbling? You either believe in the prophet or not.”) and comments that fault the broader world (“To all the non-members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: Why do you care? Unless you are a member of the church, this doesn’t [a]ffect you – so why comment?”) (Never mind that in the context of the Newsroom, the announcement does affect the secular world.) Whether directed inward or outward, such responses literally make others offenders for a word, and have the sole purpose of disparaging others.

E. Responses that take the request seriously and analyze why adopting it might or might not work. Note that “Mormon” is both a noun and an adjective, while “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” even setting aside the clumsiness of its length, is a noun that cannot be easily adapted to an adjectival form. Normal English (among other languages) speech requires both. The announcement does not provide usable suggestions for that vital linguistic element. For other reasons, suggested substitutions do not work in the context of journalism: Can you really imagine your favorite broadcaster reporting in the thick of some legal controversy related to LGBT issues that “The restored gospel of Jesus Christ limits marriage to the union of one man and one woman”? It doesn’t work, and ain’t gonna happen.

As for me, my immediate response was to make the expected jokes about name changes that would be required to meet this request. I intended to be funny, although my obvious jokes quickly became stale as the same ones were made by every other commenter on every other platform. But I also noticed, eventually, that in order to make these obvious jokes, I was typing the full name of the Church over and over again. That was a necessary element of virtually every joke: They depended for their humor on the absurdity of using the full name of the Church in even the most casual of circumstances.

I abruptly stopped making those jokes, however, for reasons having little to do with the redundancy of my wit with that of others. I recognized, and became uncomfortable with, the number of times I was using the name of the Lord, and in what context. It was not good. I was using the name of the Lord as a mockery at worst; even in its least obnoxious interpretation, my joking was doing what the Doctrine and Covenants explains was the reason for an earlier linguistic accommodation: “But out of respect or reverence to the name of the Supreme Being, to avoid the too frequent repetition of his name, they, the church, in ancient days, called that priesthood after Melchizedek, or the Melchizedek Priesthood” (D&C 107:4). I don’t swear. I avoid the use of “OMG” as digital shorthand. I won’t be making jokes of this kind again, unless I can avoid this problem. Your mileage may vary, and I won’t condemn.

As of now, subject to further thought and those “updates” to be expected in “coming months,” my take is that this announcement was clumsily handled. The words appear to be addressed to Church members, but the action is expected of the broader world. It would have been far better to have paraphrased President Nelson to a version independent of faith claims for Newsroom consumption, and reserved language implying revelatory background for a Conference talk, an Ensign editorial, or some other internal forum. If it is important for us to focus on the Savior and the true name of the Church, fine, teach us that; that is easily within the prophetic mission. But no one can reasonably expect “The World” to alter its speech to accommodate a prophetic dictum; if you want them to use different terminology, present it as a professional request, accompanied by professional – meaning usable – substitutions.

And for heaven’s sake, my fellow [whatever we are; I expect to continue to use “Mormon” (or “LDS”) in such contexts as “Mormon history” and even “Mormon missionaries,” “Mormon architecture,” etc.], don’t use this request to beat up on anybody, as a weapon against members you consider less worthy than yourselves, or non-members who have no obligation to cater to our whims.