It seems there's an official ritual for everything in the USA! Seems to far exceed anything we've got back here. I'm not knocking it, I quite like rituals - but the impression we often get is that America is more laid back and relaxed about things like that, and it seems the reverse. I suppose it goes with the fact that the USA, far from being a "young country", has one of the oldest continuous systems of government in the world.

So there's half mast and half-staff - but though we talk about flagpoles, noone ever says half-pole. The way we use language is very arbitrary.