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Tuesday, 6 May 2008
Myanmar Shave, Or, Today We Have Re-Naming Of Parts
 How pleasing to find that the title below contains the word "Burma" rather than hideous Myanmar. Burma should be the name. Wavell, Slim, Orde Wingate. The Burma Road. And of course those Route 66 rhymes that always ended with "Burma Shave." Myanmar Shave will not do. And while we are at it, we insist that Upper Volta be allowed to again become Upper Volta, shedding "Burkina Faso" (which makes one think of a fuse, or "fuso orario"), a name that in the local language means "strong man" while Upper Volta nicely locates the country in space. We've had quite enough of strong men in Africa. And Sri Lanka -- that will have to go too. It's Ceylon. We won't insist on Serendip. We are reasonable. And the names recently adopted for other parts of the world also need attention. Ho Chi Minh City is unacceptable, intolerable; Saigon needs to come back soon, not only because Ho Chi Minh should not be honored, but because Saigon better evokes the French theme -- Marguerite Duras and "L'Amant," with tinkles of "La Petite Tonkinoise" as sung by Josephine Bakairr in the background and, in the foreground, Marie Dubas or Edith Piaf singing "Mon Legionnaire." Today's a start. Today we have renaming of parts. Posted on 11:23 AM by Hugh Fitzgerald
Comments
6 May 2008
reactionry Myanmar's Marauders?
Or: Tonkinese Resolution
Or: Apre Moi, Le Pâtes*
Or: No, No, Myanmar**
I'm mildly miffed that the emigrated American maven omitted mention of Merrill's "Marauders," and just between you and me and the guerilla behind that tree or behind Nipponese lines, Stillwell could have have been nicely tucked somewhere in Hugh's recitation of Wavell, Slim and Wingate.
I agree that the Vietnamese should not honor Ho Chi Minh, who probably could have achieved independence from France without hitching his people to the red star of messianic communism, but we could do worse than to emulate the bastard's resolution as we toss out "immigrants" who are irrevocably anti-white in outlook and have political beliefs antithetical to ours and are at the very least, fast reducing "European-Americans" to something like the demographic insignificance of the Amerinds.
"Upper Volta" should be brought back if for no other reason than it lent something-or-other to Al Capp's "Lower Slobovia":
which I just now realized, (knock-knock, puddin' head) must have inspired Dilbert's "Elbonia."
 (Yankee Doodle "Dilbert" should be given credit for not spending lives and treasure in bringing peace, democracy and Western freedoms to the above buggers barely above the snow line and then sticking a feather in his cap and calling it "elbow macaroni.*")
Geography, and for that matter, spelling (many thanks to Google and AOL's spell checker), are important. As Lewis Carroll might have observed: Wogs begin at "Callay!"
**Apologies to Nanette, and speaking of Piaf, let's hope that we have happier tunes than the French paratroopers who sung "No, no regrets" at Zeralda. (hat tip to Jean Raspail)
6 May 2008
reactionry Erratum or Bué Boo-Boo: Wogs begin with "Callay" and end with "alloinde". 7 May 2008
Jewel So do the Myanmarines speak Myanmari or Myanmarinian, or Burmese? I recall how Persian was replaced by our Egg Head Class with Farsi...which is actually an Arabic word for Persion, since Arabic has no P. And there are a minority of Parsees in India. And of course, there are other examples of this absurdity, but why go on...nuff said. |
