I am still getting used to the fact that Burma changed its name to Myanmar (it happened in 1989) but I was very surprised to learn yesterday that the little country of Swaziland (it's completely surrounded by South Africa) changed its name to Eswatini in 2018. Were you aware of this? I have never heard the word Eswatini before. Where have I been for the last five years?
The world map has changed significantly since I studied geography in school, at which time Alaska and Hawaii were not states and the US flag had 48 (not 57) stars.
Can you match the old names of the countries in A with their new names in B?
A -- Northern Rhodesia, Czechoslovakia, Ruanda-Urundi, East Pakistan, Southern Rhodesia, Yugoslavia, Ceylon, Tanganyika, Siam, Upper Volta, Ivory Coast, French Indo-China, Zanzibar, Nyasaland
B -- Tanzania, Slovenia, Bangladesh, Serbia, Zambia, Kosovo, Sri Lanka, Czechia, Viet Nam, Rwanda, Malawi, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Zimbabwe, Cote d'Ivoire, Slovakia, Cambodia, Montenegro, Burundi, North Macedonia, Burkina Faso, Laos, Croatia, Thailand
I realize that there are 14 names in A and 23 names in B, but that is just part of the fun. There will be no names left over if you answer correctly.
Which brings us to Worldle. Not Wordle. Worldle. I love Worldle. I have absolutely no interest in Wordle, or Sudoku for that matter, but I play two versions of Worldle every single day, one in English and one in French. The goal is to identify a country by its shape, and in the French version you also are asked to identify its neighbors (les voisins) by their shapes, its capital, its flag (le drapeau), and its approximate population. Great fun for nerds like me. Most challenging to someone who took a single year of French is trying to locate the French name of the country one needs to type from a long alphabetized French list. It can give the brain, not to mention the scrolling finger, a workout because, well, just look:
South Africa is Afrique du Sud
Western Sahara is Sahara Occidental
North Korea is Corée du Nord
South Korea is Corée du Sud
United States is États-Unis d'Amérique
Netherlands is Pays Bas*
*literally, Low Country
On the subject of masks, for most of my life I have assumed something about masks that turns out not to be true at all. I have assumed that when I wore a mask I was protecting myself from things other people had like germs and contagious diseases. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Actually it's just the opposite. When you wear a mask you aren't protecting yourself from other people, you are protecting other people from you. You are not protected unless the other person is wearing a mask. This may seem obvious to you but I was oblivious. So doctors and nurses in operating rooms are not protecting themselves from the patient's contagious disease, they are attempting to keep the sterile area uncontaminated for the patient's benefit.
Live and learn.
My continued apologies that my inability to reply to comments seems to be the new normal around here. I will try to catch up in an actual post.
P.S. -- I know the US flag has 50 stars, not 57. That was a poke at President Obama.
I don't know many of the new names, but can recognise nearly all of the old flags. About as much use as being able to program in COBOL.
ReplyDeleteOne of my jobs in my career as librarian was as Maps Librarian, I loved that job, maps are so fascinating. All the name and border changes. Some maps I like are the ones that are printed "upside down" with the hemispheres reversed. Old maps show where palm tree and crocodilian like dinosaurs lived at the south pole when it was tropical. Fun post
ReplyDeleteSome of the 'new' names are so unattractive, I do like the French names, though. The French like to do things their own way and damn the rest of the world!
ReplyDeleteAt this time of night, my brain couldn't cope with al those names, so I scrolled back to your previous post, and had a good giggle. I even wrote a suitable missive to comment, but it seemed to disappear down a black hole. I think that's the sign to tell me to go to bed, :-)
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