Is it Myanmar -- the choice of the ruling junta -- or Burma, the choice of the U.S. government, which never recognized the junta as a legitimate government?
It gets messy -- and complicated. See the debate at the American Copy Editors Society discussion board. Strong views all around.
Language Log also weighs in.
John McIntyre, who is in charge of desks at the Baltimore Sun, puts it well:
It's hard enough for the copy desk to make decisions about what will be intelligible to the audience without our having to rule on the legitimacy of governments and the legacies of colonialism.
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1 comment:
I'm with the 8th comment down from the top of the thread. The State Department doesn't dictate to us how to name or label a nation. The US could come out tomorrow calling Iran "Persia" and it wouldn't make any difference. For me, its what the citizens and government of that particular country decide.
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