I get "Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)" on a Japanese connection.
This stuff is obviously pointless and silly but it's nothing new. I'm sure Google Maps shows UK and French users different names for what I would call the English Channel.
This stuff is obviously pointless and silly but it's nothing new. I'm sure Google Maps shows UK and French users different names for what I would call the English Channel.
Ironically, it’s the same language policing that got the left in trouble. We have better things to do with our lives than keep a running tally of the right and wrong names for things.
Who asked to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43012859
Left and right are both off their rockers right now, and it's really frustrating for the majority of us stuck in the middle, getting shouted down and silenced from both sides.
Would you really feel confident in your job at X if you called it the Gulf of Mexico?
An idiot who called a rescue diver a "pedo" because the diver was a hero who rescued trapped children and everyone laughed at the stupid mini-submarine idea.
You'd probably be fired just for bringing that up, and laughing at it again, never mind your language use.
And also, to be fair, most names in other languages have a long history. I wouldn’t want people to call Germany anything but what it is called in their local language because for most European languages that’s a millennia of history packed into that name.
You should go and look up what Croatia is really called. Or Japan, Germany, Korea, China, Hungary, Greece, Finland...
It would be interesting to see what it shows people outside of UK and France.
It's not a UK vs France thing, it's just English vs French (vs every other language).
Things get complicated when governments make things "official", though. For example, the Welsh government decided to make the "official" names for some places Welsh, which English speakers have no idea how to pronounce. So the Brecon Beacons is "officially" Bannau Brycheiniog, even in English, apparently.
In Ireland, for example, it's called the English Channel.