The Economist explains: Why the first world war wasn't really

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THE world—or, at least, those parts of it that participated in the original events—has recently taken great interest in the first world war. Its almost casual beginning, between June 28th 1914, when the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary was assassinated by a Bosnian nationalist and the first days of August, when Germany declared war on Russia and France, drawing in their ally Britain, has fascinated historians, while the horrors that followed have fascinated everyone, though in a rather different way. But does the conflict deserve its title? It was undoubtedly a world war. But it was certainly not the first. That laurel belongs to a war which broke out 160 years earlier, in 1754, and carried on until 1763. Though fighting did not start in Europe until 1756, and for this reason the conflict is known as the Seven Years’ War, it was truly global. Every inhabited continent except Australia saw fighting on its soil, and independent powers on three of those continents were active participants.

The first action of this first global conflict involved a young officer whose name may be familiar to some readers. On May 28th 1754 a small group of soldiers from the British colony of Virginia, under the command of a man called George Washington, engaged a group of French troops who were interloping from New France (ie Canada) into territory the British considered theirs. Instead of peacefully repelling them as he had been instructed, Washington ended up killing several of them, including their commanding officer. This campaign in North America then continued, with both sides in alliance with local Indian nations, until, two years later, Britain’s ally Prussia attacked the small German state of Saxony, bringing Saxony’s ally Austria, and thus Austria’s ally France (and therefore France’s enemy and Prussia’s ally, Britain), into the conflict. It is a sequence of events eerily similar to the way that in 1914 an attack by Germany’s ally Austria on the small Balkan state of Serbia brought in Serbia’s ally Russia, which then threatened Germany, which then declared war on both Russia and Russia’s ally France.

The war rapidly globalised. Both Britain and France reinforced their colonial troops in North America, and started attacking each other’s colonies in the West Indies and trading stations in Africa and India. In India, some of the princely states which had recently emerged from the dying Mughal empire also got involved, and Britain ended up taking over one of them, Bengal. The war came to South America when, near its end, Spain joined the French side and attacked one of the American colonies of Britain’s ally, Portugal.

Like the first world war, this global conflict reshaped the globe. Indeed, it is the reason why the modern world is an English-speaking one. As a colonial power, France was destroyed, and did not return seriously to the business of overseas conquest until it attacked Algeria in 1830. All of North America east of the Mississipi became British, save the city of New Orleans, which became Spanish. And the foundations of British rule in India were laid as well. As for George Washington, he ended up leading a rebel army put together by colonials who, freed from fear of French encirclement, unwilling to help pay for the war that had given them that freedom, and frustrated by British protection of the lands of their Indian allies from encroachment by colonial property speculators (including Washington himself), decided that they would rather go it alone.

Dig deeper:
Learning from the first president (June 2013)
A century on, there are uncomfortable parallels with 1914 (December 2013)
Europe's commemorations could end a 100-year haunting (November 2013)

So why does The Economist pedantically insist on calling the First World War the 'first world war', as if it were a descriptive term? Surely it deserves capitalization because it is a specific instance that everyone recognizes as a named event, not a description.
For example, if you are happy with the Seven Years War, because the seven years war might be ambiguous with other wars that lasted 7 years, and you are happy with WWI as an abbreviation, then why not the First World War and the Second World War?
If you insist on decapitalizing these two wars, I shall have to start calling you the economist. Vague and ambiguous? I hope so. If you get really opinionated about only using lower case, I shall call you the e.e.conomist.

First, believing that we do not speak French because of the Seven Years' War is a fallacy. If we spoke French at all, it was going to be because they aided us in our separation from England.

Secondly, French, also German and English (of course) were debated as being the native tongue of our new country. The people back then were far more adept at speaking multiple languages because of their foundations. We are lazy today, and think that this is just bullocks.

Third, "All of North America east of the Mississipi became British, save the city of New Orleans, which became Spanish," is entirely incorrect. New Orleans was never Spanish. Have you ever been there? Goodness son, they're the Cajun French for a reason. Texas and Florida, however, were still Spanish and Georgia was only taken to be a buffer zone between the Colonies and the Spanish, while serving doubly as a penal place for criminals to be sent.

Fourth, as an author, you should make it a point to better reference your broad statements or allow those of us who are Historians, to enlighten others on such matters. This essay/article/writing is a ridiculous opinion on something that has little to no quantitative proof, unlike WWI. This is why your thoughts are dubious at best.