Active Users:367 Time:10/11/2024 08:11:27 PM
The BBC is just silly. Tom Send a noteboard - 22/06/2010 03:08:32 PM
I was reading about the Russia-Belarus dispute over gas and started laughing almost immediately. Thankfully, the BBC (unlike some other publications, who could learn from this practice) calls the Belorussian President "Alexander Lukashenko" instead of "Lukashenka".

However, they followed Belorussian, rather than Russian, orthography to twist the common Russian name "Vladimir Semashko" into "Uladzimir Syamashka".

Apparently someone forgot to send them the memo that, even though there is a language called "Belorussian" (or, as they might like to spell it, "Belarusian" ), no one speaks it. "Officially" around 20% of the population knows it, but those people are really Poles living in the part of the country that was actually Poland before 1945 and the language they are speaking is, in actuality, Polish, but just spelled a little differently.

In actuality, the Republic of Belarus speaks Russian. Attempts at political correctness on the part of Western newspapers just seem silly in this respect.

The only thing I can think of that would be comparable to this absurdity is if the BBC (or the Economist, or whoever) were to refer to the Irish President, not as Mary McAleese, but as Máire Pádraigín Bean Mhic Ghiolla Íosa, out of deference to the five people left alive in Ireland who still speak Gaelic as their primary language.
Political correctness is the pettiest form of casuistry.

ἡ δὲ κἀκ τριῶν τρυπημάτων ἐργαζομένη ἐνεκάλει τῇ φύσει, δυσφορουμένη, ὅτι δὴ μὴ καὶ τοὺς τιτθοὺς αὐτῇ εὐρύτερον ἢ νῦν εἰσι τρυπώη, ὅπως καὶ ἄλλην ἐνταῦθα μίξιν ἐπιτεχνᾶσθαι δυνατὴ εἴη. – Procopius

Ummaka qinnassa nīk!

*MySmiley*
Reply to message
The BBC is just silly. - 22/06/2010 03:08:32 PM 652 Views
Ahem. - 22/06/2010 03:26:42 PM 460 Views
On that note - 22/06/2010 06:17:56 PM 350 Views
It gets down to how many "y"s you want to write. - 22/06/2010 06:35:28 PM 485 Views
Re: It gets down to how many "y"s you want to write. - 22/06/2010 06:40:21 PM 462 Views
And so are you - 23/06/2010 01:02:07 AM 564 Views

Reply to Message