BretLudwig
November 30th 08, 04:12 AM
“Terrorists Strike in Indian City”
>>"That was the rather long and uninformative headline a few days ago in
the local newspaper. They couldn’t say “Terrorists Strike in Mumbai”
because few of the local rag’s the readers know in what country
“Mumbai” is. Readers have heard of “Bombay.” They’ve eaten at
Bombay Bicycle Club restaurants and they’ve bought end tables from
Bombay Co. Furniture stores, so they mostly know Bombay is a city in
India. But, Mumbai they don’t know from Kolkata or Chennai. So, the
headline writer has to refer to “Indian City” because the
English-language media recently stopped using the place name that has been
used in English for centuries.
The effect, of course, is what normally happens when names are changed.
The Name Game just makes most people more ignorant (while giving a few
people another reason to self-congratulate over their superior
sensitivity). Older Americans who grew up hearing about Bombay can’t
understand today’s news; and younger Americans who are growing up
hearing about Mumbai won’t be able to understand all the books in the
library that refer to Bombay.
Fortunately, there’s a double standard that prevents the media from
junking Anglicized spellings of places in the white world. We’re in no
danger that “Florence” or “Germany” will disappear from the AP
stylebook to be replaced by baffling references to “Firenze” and
“Deutschland.”<<
http://blog.vdare.com/archives/2008/11/29/terrorists-strike-in-indian-city/
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>>"That was the rather long and uninformative headline a few days ago in
the local newspaper. They couldn’t say “Terrorists Strike in Mumbai”
because few of the local rag’s the readers know in what country
“Mumbai” is. Readers have heard of “Bombay.” They’ve eaten at
Bombay Bicycle Club restaurants and they’ve bought end tables from
Bombay Co. Furniture stores, so they mostly know Bombay is a city in
India. But, Mumbai they don’t know from Kolkata or Chennai. So, the
headline writer has to refer to “Indian City” because the
English-language media recently stopped using the place name that has been
used in English for centuries.
The effect, of course, is what normally happens when names are changed.
The Name Game just makes most people more ignorant (while giving a few
people another reason to self-congratulate over their superior
sensitivity). Older Americans who grew up hearing about Bombay can’t
understand today’s news; and younger Americans who are growing up
hearing about Mumbai won’t be able to understand all the books in the
library that refer to Bombay.
Fortunately, there’s a double standard that prevents the media from
junking Anglicized spellings of places in the white world. We’re in no
danger that “Florence” or “Germany” will disappear from the AP
stylebook to be replaced by baffling references to “Firenze” and
“Deutschland.”<<
http://blog.vdare.com/archives/2008/11/29/terrorists-strike-in-indian-city/
--
Message posted using http://www.talkaboutaudio.com/group/rec.audio.opinion/
More information at http://www.talkaboutaudio.com/faq.html