Gulf of America name change in the U.S. | Hacker News Reader

Gulf of America name change in the U.S.

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31 pointsjnd056 comments

I found the whole "renaming things war" the first time stupid; as it peaked with renaming "master" to "main", highlighting both an ignorance and literacy problem.

This time around, it's just as stupid, it's just coming from the other side.

I'm hoping this exposes both sides to how ridiculous this crap is.

> it peaked with renaming "master" to "main"

For me, no rename will ever surpass freedom fries:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_fries

... I forgot about that one. The jokes write themselves.

I'm interested in the names that stayed out of the war. Git Branches were an open field of conflict, but "Masters" programs somehow were not.

The reason I've heard is that contemporary Academics were simply comfortable with their terms, and unwilling to change them. It was inertia, which combined with their power as America's secular theologians, weighted the discourse away from their privilege.

Since myself and everyone I know refuses to acknowledge this "name change"... what map apps do you guys recommend?

Sticking it to Trump by switching to a bad maps app.

I think that people are uncomfortable with the idea that Google Maps is centralized and can unilaterally change what you see. Having an offline version of a map helps protect against sudden change (go forward or retroactive).

As an aside, I do really like organic maps. I keep it installed with downloaded maps for when I travel to places with poor signal, including hiking trails.

Oh, so you just blindly agree with whatever he says and just blindly use Google services whilst ignoring the reasons people might have issues with them?

If I had to stop using services or buying products every time they advocate for something or do some change I disagree with I would have to live in a cabin in the woods.

"The extreme version of this position is unreasonable, therefore the moderate version of this position is also unreasonable"

Is there a name for this fallacy?

If everything must be political, would you mind explaining your support for venture capitalism that comes implicit in the act of commenting on Hacker News?

OpenStreetMaps has excellent maps, and there are many apps that use it. Unfortunately their search is usually not that good.

I use Organic Maps, and also have OsmAnd. Great maps, poor search. I'd love to know if there's an app with better search.

Well, at the moment OSM has the tag

"official_name:en-US"="Gulf of America"

but it changes regularly (see https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/305639190). How the map providers deal with this tag is up to them. There's actually a huge discussion how to deal with this. It's... complicated:

https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/gulf-of-america-gulf-o...

That sounds reasonable. name:en is still "Gulf of Mexico". That way I suppose the app can choose whether to use the general English or US-specific name.

VPN to Mexico, or just set your device location outside of the U.S.

In the Czech Republic at least, Google Maps now shows "Mexický záliv (Americký záliv)". I'm not sure which countries still see the original name other than Mexico.

Per the link, they're just following the US Geographic Names Information System updates. What _should_ be the standard here, if not to follow the official naming policies?

How about a non-US standard?

Apple Maps still refers to it as Gulf of Mexico.

If Apple decided to call it the Gulf of Steve, they might just be big enough to get it to stick.

The name change serves zero purpose and is nothing more than political theater.

It happens because political theater works on enough people to swing elections.

It was political theater when the Obama administration renamed Mount McKinley to Denali, but obviously they felt that it served a purpose.

I'm not so sure.

The McKinley name for the mountain was by a prospector, ginning up support for a presidential candidate. A bunch of people showed up, started digging for gold, and just ignored the local names for things.

Denali is historically relevant, and locally relevant. It seems like a reduction in politics, not a continuation.

Denali is just the word for 'tall' in some local dialect. It is not exactly pregnant with meaning.

> It seems like a reduction in politics, not a continuation.

That's an odd take given that there was far less political discussion around the mountain's name prior to its renaming under Obama.

I think you lack empathy for others, and it's leading you to discount things that matter to people.

Empathy is telling 300,000,000 people to call the mountain "Denali" just because it matters to some 2,000 extant members of a tribe? Are you sure that's empathy? Because to me it seems empty and performative. I could be wrong though. Do you suggest that we use native terms for every landmark that matters to the erstwhile locals, given that their feelings about place names mean so much? Now that I think about it, of course you do. You'd have to be some kind of psychopath to go around guilt tripping strangers about the name of one measly mountain without actually giving a damn about the principles involved.

Wow. Yes, I hope you inspect your relationships with people.

> Denali is just the word for 'tall' in some local dialect. It is not exactly pregnant with meaning.

Look up the etymology of Mont Blanc or the Himalayas -- not especially pregnant with meaning either. The point is that using the local name, if it existed, was a pretty well established principle in cartography, made more conspicuous when overlooked, as with Mt. Everest. And Denali.

The 'Grand Teton' mountain in Wyoming is just a French phrase meaning 'big boob'.[1] And 'McKinley' was just some politician who had never even laid eyes on his namesake lump of rock.

[1] https://www.davehansenwhitewater.com/how-the-tetons-got-thei...

"Mont Blanc"? The descendants of the celtic peoples who originally populated the area would take issue with that moniker. They didn't have a true written language back in the daye, but they did have a rune-like symbol for that mountain that looks just like unicode character U+1F4A9. Hopefully in time we will all refer to the mountain in a more respectful way.

The mountain has a long history of name changes and many of the changes have been political. Denali is a name that seems to have some significant local support.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denali#Naming

There it is, just like clockwork, the whataboutism appears.

Seriously though, let the locals be in charge of naming things. As a Texan, I've always just called it the Gulf. But if asked, it's full name is Gulf of Mexico, named after the Mexica (the Aztecs to you and me).

Are there other instances of differing names by country? I don't mean language differences. I found it strange that for the rest of the world, they'll see both.

La Manche = English Channel

Persian Gulf = Arabian Gulf

Persian Gulf/Arabian Gulf, maybe?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_Gulf_naming_dispute

Vietnam War/American War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War#cite_note-77

East Sea / Sea of Japan

It's pretty standard when there is a territory in dispute.

For example, Islas Malvinas (for Argentina) / Falkland Islands (for the UK).

But this isn't a territory dispute this is just an internal US name change.

Here in the Czech Republic it now shows up as "Mexický záliv (Americký záliv)". Why are they adding "Americký záliv" in a parenthetical? It's not like the executive order has any effect outside the US. Why would they change the name in any way anywhere but in the US? By what reasoning would they change the name in the Czech Republic but not in Mexico? US official naming means nothing to Mexico just as it means nothing to Czech Republic.

Rio Grande / Rio Bravo

Google has been far too eager to please Trump and implement his silly ideas. I don't even think it's the president's job to name geographical features, and certainly not for the rest of the world.

Someone recently pointed out that this sort of thing is a test to divide the people into two groups: those who comply, and can be counted on to comply with whatever comes next, and those who protest, and are clearly a problem that might need to be dealt with. The people who are silent can generally be counted on to remain silent.

But even if you don't care about such political implications, it's ridiculous that Google is also forcing this onto the rest of the world.

But I was already planning to rely more on OSM anyway. I suggest that everybody who objects to this grandstanding do the same.

> it's ridiculous that Google is also forcing this onto the rest of the world.

Yeah I was surprised (and frankly annoyed) by this as well, I don't see the value of showing this to everyone in the world when all of this relates to a "drama" played out in one country over the course of one presidential term with close to zero chance of extending that to another term (the guy is already 78 years old and it's showing in his ever more erratic behavior). I sure hope we can forget about this nonsense 4+ years from now...

You give them too much credit, they just follow the money/power. A few years ago it was virtue signalling about diversity &co, now we're on the other end of the spectrum, god knows what tomorrow will bring.

At least it hasn't been renamed to "Gulf of the United States".

America is not exclusive to the US but a whole continent, for the much larger part comprising many more spanish/portuguese speaking countries and also Canada.

The US basically is only the increasingly annoying bully in the middle.

So did Google have to comply with this? Couldn’t they just pretend it never happened and keep it Gulf of Mexico and never address it or respond to questions or comments about it?

Also if you zoom out enough it shows the name as both.

Why would they have to comply ? They all willingly got in line to gargle trump's balls:

https://etvbharatimages.akamaized.net/etvbharat/prod-images/...

Google Maps now shows the 'Gulf of America'

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43007052

As much as I hate the arbitrary nature of this name change and the sentiment behind it, name changes happen all across the world.

Kagi maps still says gulf of Mexico.

I wish they had a native android app - Any way to easily set up that page as a PWA?

Where are the parody map artists?

This is the parody. Anything else would be imperfect.

Does Mexico pay for cleaning up Exxon’s oil spills now?

It's not named for the Mexicans, it's named for the Aztec people, the Mexica as they called themselves.

If are not explicitly anti-authoritarian, then you are just waiting for an opportunity or offer to align with an authoritarian.

People can say whatever they want about rules and procedures and precedents and whatever else, but this was absolutely a signal to Trump that they are in line.

Just wait until Google effectively re-draws the border of Ukraine to Putin's liking and labels Taiwan as another province of China.

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