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Comment by siffland | Hacker News Reader

I applaud Colombia for this. I really hope international pressure does its job and gets Venezuela back on track. I understand Russian and China wanting to secure their investments in the country, but the cost is taking its toll. I dont know how someone like Maduro can really live with himself and his lifestyle when so many are suffering.I also have read that U.S. sanctions are to blame, i dont know if this is true or just government corruption.

I wish the US would do a fast track for Venezuelan migrants, or at least i hope we provide aide to Colombia to help with expenses.

And if Argentina is helping too they get massive kudos as well.

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> I applaud Columbia for this […]

> […] i hope we provide aide to Columbia to help with expenses

Just so you know, the English spelling is “Colombia” (O instead of U) [1].

If you say “Columbia” (U instead of O) you are talking about the historical female personification of the United States of America, and a poetic name for the Americas [2]. I don’t know why people make this mistake so many times, even looking at this list [3] I cannot find any reference to “Columbia” as the name for the country.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colombia

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_(name)

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia

Point taken, I have updated my post with the correct spelling.

I am use to typing it that way for the District of Columbia. That is not an excuse, but that is why it is probably misspelled a lot.

Same here. As someone who lives in British Columbia, I always conflate the two.

Americans make the mistake because there are major things named Columbia here, including a major river, the C in Washinton, DC, an Ivy League university, a state capitol, the C in CBS, a record label, a movie studio, a space shuttle that tragically exploded, and many more that I'm sure the Wikipedia page lists (I only typed out those I knew of off the top of my head).

The misspelling of the country is a pet peeve of mine as well, but I don't think it's confusing why people make it - they simply think it's spelled the same way as all of the other Columbia's they read about.

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