51–60 of 62 posts
This is a good moment to remind everyone that the USA is not "America". Not even North America. Just a part of it.
While true, that charitable interpretation of this renaming is not appropriate to apply here.
Google is a perfect example of the banality of evil.
This isn't really on Google. Countries disagree on how things should be named. Google sources the US centric view from the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS). Blame the person causing the GNIS updates.
Inside the US. In the rest of the world, it shows the correct name.
The correct name depends on your context. I know it’s unpopular but it’s true.
And the correct name in all contexts that matter is "Lake Ontario".
It's almost as if people don't know that "Ontario" is not a Canadian name, it's a native American one, and the province is named after the lake, not the other way around.
It was called "Lake Ontario" before Canada or the US even existed.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Blame the person at Google who chose to source from GNIS, without edits.
So you prefer google to be the arbiter of what are official names within each country? I think the US administration name change is childish, dumb and short-sighted, but if the authority of geographical names in an area designates it as such then I think it should show as such within maps within that area, at least as long as the clarification is readily shown. The same already happens for things like "Falkland Islan…
No, but they are certainly the arbiter of what names they use on the maps they produce.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's ridiculous! How do you rename half of a lake! I say that there are two lakes . It remains for future generations to decide how the two lakes are apportioned. Perhaps each of them are coterminous, with the same boundaries, size and volume, but one is named "Lake America" and one is not. One is a lake in US waters, and the other is in some foreign country. Perhaps of the two lakes, they are split in twain, and t…
That's not really how local naming works. I call Germany Germany but the Germans call it Deutschland. There's not two Germany's, there's just one and I have a different name for it. It really doesn't matter if a geographic object is completely inside, partially inside, or completely outside a country's borders, they have an official or de facto name for it that could differ from what you call it.
If Trump tells Google, and spends taxpayer money, to "officially rename" Ottawa itself "Poopietown", then should they do it?
Maybe we need a constitutional amendment to remove the president's power over place names, given that the founding fathers only considered a malevolent president, not one with the brain of a 5 year old.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One thing that does seem to be incorrect is that Google has a single name on the lake - Lake America, when surely that only applies to the American half. The US-Canadian border runs down the middle of the lake, so unless I'm missing something Trump's renaming only applies to the American half, and the correct way for Google to show it would be with different names for each half of the lake.
That's ridiculous! How do you rename half of a lake! I say that there are two lakes . It remains for future generations to decide how the two lakes are apportioned. Perhaps each of them are coterminous, with the same boundaries, size and volume, but one is named "Lake America" and one is not. One is a lake in US waters, and the other is in some foreign country. Perhaps of the two lakes, they are split in twain, and t…
I remember years ago driving across the border at Niagara Falls, and just being waved though, no passport required, when I said I was just on a day trip.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So you prefer google to be the arbiter of what are official names within each country? I think the US administration name change is childish, dumb and short-sighted, but if the authority of geographical names in an area designates it as such then I think it should show as such within maps within that area, at least as long as the clarification is readily shown. The same already happens for things like "Falkland Islan…
> So you prefer google to be the arbiter of what are official names within each country? No, but they are certainly the arbiter of what names they use on the maps they produce.
While they show Lake Ontario (Lake America) in the rest of the world, I would like to suggest that they apply a more patronizing treatment to the alias: Lake Ontario ("Lake America") The quotes add a certain.. je ne sais quoi. I think overall it's not Google's job to decide the names of things. Half of America voted for the circus, enjoy!
If I'm swimming in Lake America, in America, greatest country in the world, I don't want to hear this "Je ne sais quoi" - Keep it in American, buddy.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> So you prefer google to be the arbiter of what are official names within each country? No, but they are certainly the arbiter of what names they use on the maps they produce.
So you want them to take a political stance on every naming and territorial dispute?
But no, I don't want them to take a political stance on every naming dispute. In this case, however, when the "dispute" is between a clearly incompetent president and the nation he presides over, yes, seeing companies standing up against the madness would be welcome.