• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.
Are we talking about the same island?

You know?

Barren moorland, some hills and beaches, receives 1 million visitants per year, mostly in campervans?

yup - the Storr, the Quirang, Orbost Beach on Loch Bharcasaig...

Go in autumn and the Cuillin are spectacular! In my roaming days I often went up there for my birthday - mid october.
 
Hmm - personally, I think that one's a bit of a stretch.

That said, given the vocal dislike and mistrust of the Brits by certain elements in US society - elements which I strongly suspect overlap with those indulging in the current desire to poke sticks at names - being named for a Brit by an Italian might be an even more satisfying provenance than named for an Italian by a German.

As a different German once said:

Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.
I am aware that, until fairly recently, the consensus view was that America was named after Amerigo Vespucci.
Most countries named after people though tend to take their family name, rather than Christian name.

Bolivia: Simon Bolivar
Columbia: Christopher Columbus
Kiribati: Thomas Gilbert (Kiribati being the native rendition of Gilbert)
Marshall Islands: John Marshall
Peru: <unknown first name> Biru - a local tribal chief.
Seychelles: Jean de Sechelles.
Rhodesia: Cecil Rhodes
Bermuda: Juan de Bermúdez
Cook Islands: Captain James Cook
Pitcairn Islands: Robert Pitcairn

John Cabot's ship that made the historic sailing from Bristol to Newfoundland in 1497 was owned by Richard Amerik(e).
I certainly wouldn't rule out the new continent being named in his honour.
If America wasn't named after Amerik(e), then the similarity of the name has to be one hell of a coincidence!
 
Last edited:
I am aware that, until fairly recently, the consensus view was that America was named after Amerigo Vespucci.
Most countries named after people though tend to take their family name, rather than Christian name.

Bolivia: Simon Bolivar
Columbia: Christopher Columbus
Kiribati: Thomas Gilbert (Kiribati being the native rendition of Gilbert)
Marshall Islands: John Marshall
Peru: <unknown first name> Biru - a local tribal chief.
Seychelles: Jean de Sechelles.
Rhodesia: Cecil Rhodes
Bermuda: Juan de Bermúdez
Cook Islands: Captain James Cook
Pitcairn Islands: Robert Pitcairn

John Cabot's ship that made the historic sailing from Bristol to Newfoundland in 1497 was owned by Richard Amerik(e).
I certainly wouldn't rule out the new continent being named in his honour.
If America wasn't named after Amerik(e), then the similarity of the name has to be one hell of a coincidence!

It is really interesting, and an intriguing coincidence - if indeed that's all it is.

Worth noting though that the history of surname usage is uneven, and in some countries doesn’t seem to have become anything like universal until the later stages of the late medieval period – and even then, wasn’t necessarily a legal/administrative requirement in any formalised way.

The first written usage of the name America is - as far as we know - from 1507, just this side of that era. Clearly the examples listed above arrived more than two centuries after this. That’s a fair amount of time in there to accommodate changes in usage.

Germany and Italy were apparently both using surnames by the time America was (again, as far as we know) first named on a map, and both alleged protagonists clearly possessed them. (I think the use was more established in Germany at the alleged time of Waldseemüller's map, maybe less so in Italy - and neither country seems to have made both a requirement in legal context until after this time.)

On a complete tangent, this has actually made me wonder when it was that our surname became more important to us - and to others - as an identifier than our first name (or at least – as important). Surnames were often more like labels – trade labels, patronymics denoting ancestry, or geographical markers. Taking the current discussion as an example it seems reasonable to assume that Waldseemüller was named for Waldsee in southern Germany, and the pucci in Vespucci is apparently a patronymic (Pucci/Puccio).

Was there, I wonder, a time when we identified more personally with the former identifier, than with the latter. And could you - very roughly - annotate the evolution of the historical process something like this:

This is me.

Then

This is me + This is my context.

Then

(This is me + This is my context) = This is me.

Anyway, that’s effectively one tangent piled on another – I got carried away.

Possibly the subject deserves a thread of its own.
 
Because it's a glottal stop.
The okina can also change the meaning of a word, eg kou means your and ko’u means mine.

You learn something new every day.

I'd never heard of an okina before now.

Edit: it seems that the mark (not the sound it represents) only became standard in 1978.
 
It is really interesting, and an intriguing coincidence - if indeed that's all it is.

Worth noting though that the history of surname usage is uneven, and in some countries doesn’t seem to have become anything like universal until the later stages of the late medieval period – and even then, wasn’t necessarily a legal/administrative requirement in any formalised way.

The first written usage of the name America is - as far as we know - from 1507, just this side of that era. Clearly the examples listed above arrived more than two centuries after this. That’s a fair amount of time in there to accommodate changes in usage.

Germany and Italy were apparently both using surnames by the time America was (again, as far as we know) first named on a map, and both alleged protagonists clearly possessed them. (I think the use was more established in Germany at the alleged time of Waldseemüller's map, maybe less so in Italy - and neither country seems to have made both a requirement in legal context until after this time.)

On a complete tangent, this has actually made me wonder when it was that our surname became more important to us - and to others - as an identifier than our first name (or at least – as important). Surnames were often more like labels – trade labels, patronymics denoting ancestry, or geographical markers. Taking the current discussion as an example it seems reasonable to assume that Waldseemüller was named for Waldsee in southern Germany, and the pucci in Vespucci is apparently a patronymic (Pucci/Puccio).

Was there, I wonder, a time when we identified more personally with the former identifier, than with the latter. And could you - very roughly - annotate the evolution of the historical process something like this:

This is me.

Then

This is me + This is my context.

Then

(This is me + This is my context) = This is me.

Anyway, that’s effectively one tangent piled on another – I got carried away.

Possibly the subject deserves a thread of its own.
I was also told, long ago that the order of names reflected the different view of self in some Asian (e.g. Chinese) culture and European.

In Europe this is me I'm part of this family. I'm more important than the family.

In China This is the family, I'm part of it. The family is more important than me.

This may, of course be complete cods as I can't remember where I saw or heard this. :)
 
An In Depth report.

Greenland's dark history - and does it want Trump?​

Peter Harmsen, Journalist and author of Fury and Ice: Greenland, the United States and Germany in World War II
Reporting from Copenhagen,BBC

On a hill above Nuuk's cathedral stands a 7ft statue of the protestant missionary Hans Egede. He had reopened Greenland's link with Northern Europe in the early 1700s and laid the groundwork for the establishment of Denmark's proudest colonial possession.

One day in the late 1970s, the bronze figure was suddenly covered in red paint. I remember that day well - I passed the statue every day on my mile long walk to school. I spent two years living on Greenland while my father taught geography at Nuuk's teacher training college. It was apparent not everyone among the Inuit majority was happy about the changes that Egede had brought to Greenland a quarter of a millennium earlier.

The clinking of beer bottles in filled plastic bags carried home by the Inuit to their tiny apartments – much smaller, usually, than the ones we Danes lived in – was testimony to pervasive alcoholism, one of the ills that Denmark had brought to Greenland, amid a lot that was undeniably good: modern health, good education.

But apart from the paint-covered statue, the dream of Greenland being independent from Denmark was only slowly beginning to manifest itself.

Getty Images A wide shot of the village of Kangaamiut in Greenland.
Getty Images
Greenland, home to 57,000 people, has been an autonomous territory of Denmark since gaining home rule in 1979

At the Teacher Training College right next to my school, the closest Greenland got to having a radical student movement was developing - some young people at the college demanded to be taught in their native Greenland language.

By the late 1970s, the capital was called Nuuk and no longer Godthaab, its official name for well over two centuries.

Now, decades on, change is afoot once again, as Donald Trump has his eyes on gaining control of the country. Asked in January if he would rule out using military or economic force in order to take over the autonomous Danish territory or the Panama canal, he responded: "No, I can't assure you on either of those two. But I can say this, we need them for economic security."

Later on Air Force One he told reporters: "I think we're going to have it," adding that the island's 57,000 residents "want to be with us".
The question is, do they?

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has, meanwhile, insisted Greenland is not for sale. "Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders," she said. "It's the Greenlanders themselves who have to define their future."

So, what do the island's inhabitants want that future to look like - and if it does not involve them being part of the kingdom of Denmark, then what is the alternative?

One poll of Greenlanders suggested only 6% of Greenlanders want their country to become part of the US, with 9% undecided and 85% against. ...​


BBC InDepth is the home on the website and app for the best analysis, with fresh perspectives that challenge assumptions and deep reporting on the biggest issues of the day. And we showcase thought-provoking content from across BBC Sounds and iPlayer too. You can send us your feedback on the InDepth section by clicking on the button below.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gpgqqzqymo
 
Downgrade.

I understand the apostrophe (Hawai'i) is to preserve the native pronunciation, but why do they not use a diaeresis to prevent the diphthong?

Elegance denied.

Double downgrade: On 18th century maps the name was transliterated as Owhyhee, which l think sounds delightfully Swiftian.

maximus otter
 
Last edited:
Still Gulf of Mexico on UK google map. I’ve heard it’s only in the US version that google have re-named it. Anyone here got a VPN to check this?

Or of course, US members can check.
AFAIK no one else is going to change the name.
 
Still Gulf of Mexico on UK google map. I’ve heard it’s only in the US version that google have re-named it. Anyone here got a VPN to check this?

Or of course, US members can check.
Just fired up my Windscribe VPN so, to all intents and purposes, I was browsing from Dallas.
Checked out Google Maps USA and - it's still the Gulf of Mexico:

map.jpg
 
The Don has now officially renamed the gulf by executive order signed yesterday.

The order, titled "Restoring Names That Honour American Greatness" (Executive Order 14172), instructs the US Secretary of the Interior to formalise the name change within 30 days.

Following the order, the US Coast Guard has already begun using the name "Gulf of America," and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has 30 days to finalise the transition. The proclamation further encourages public officials and citizens to observe Gulf of America Day with "appropriate programmes, ceremonies, and activities”.
 
Out of interest - I can't really find much online, but can anyone US based tell me if there been an ongoing historical resentment to the supposed issue of the naming of the Gulf of Mexico, or has it, in this recent context, been created out of whole - or more or less whole - cloth?

I mean, I dare say there has always been a particular section of US society who would bridle at the name in any territorial context - but, really, has it ever actually been a mainstream concern for the general population of the US?
 
I wonder about all the places in the USA that are called Mexico? Will they be changed too?

(Foggy Bottom- a neighbourhood of Washington DC was once also called Mexico).
 
Out of interest - I can't really find much online, but can anyone US based tell me if there been an ongoing historical resentment to the supposed issue of the naming of the Gulf of Mexico, or has it, in this recent context, been created out of whole - or more or less whole - cloth?

I mean, I dare say there has always been a particular section of US society who would bridle at the name in any territorial context - but, really, has it ever actually been a mainstream concern for the general population of the US?
I don't think it's ever been an issue.
Latitudinally, Mexico covers more of the Gulf, so it makes sense to call it the Gulf of Mexico.
 
I don't think it's ever been an issue.
Latitudinally, Mexico covers more of the Gulf, so it makes sense to call it the Gulf of Mexico.

What I wouldn't give to be one of those elite hackers. I wonder how many times you could get 'Gulf of Cuba' on the White House website before they had any chance of finding you.

I also quite fancy 'The Havana Marginal' - which also sounds a bit like it should be a cool electro album from the 1980s.
 
Back
Top