Macedonia Agrees to Change Its Name to End Bitter Dispute with Greece • Hacker News Board

Re: Macedonia Agrees to Change Its Name to End Bitter Dispute with Greece

#91

Post by rspeer » Wed, Jun 13, 2018, 3:50 AM UTC

baron816 wrote: post #15

pavlov wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of Maine, you can find a better analogy at the opposite end of the United States. There’s a Mexican state named Baja California and a US state named simply California. Exact same thing as this Macedonia business.

There’s also a state north of Mexico called New Mexico.

There's a province of Indonesia named Papua, on the island of New Guinea, bordering the country Papua New Guinea.

I have no idea what the inhabitants think about this or if anyone even cares, but it sounds quite confusing.

Re: Macedonia Agrees to Change Its Name to End Bitter Dispute with Greece

#92

Post by mc32 » Wed, Jun 13, 2018, 4:02 AM UTC

dgut wrote: post #71

russellbeattie wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The terms America and Americans have been used for hundreds of years, not just the last decade or two. I've had this same conversation with Mexicans and people from South America. The U.S. was the first independent country in the Americas recognized by foreign countries and remained the only one for many years. The term American had been used by the British for years to refer to the colonies, and was adopted by the c…

It's irrelevant what Washington or anybody else said. The common name for the North and South American landmasses is America (note: not Americas). The land between Canada and Mexico has no more rights to that name than the rest of the continent (or continents, depending on what model you prefer). Abroad, Hollywood has popularized the use of "American" to refer to citizens of the USA. Also, most languages don't have a…

The western hemisphere is the Americas because it's composed of two continents, The North and South American Continents. IIRC from foreign language courses even in Latin American countries they are called 'The Americas'.

To me it's similar to the demonym 'New Yorker'. Is that someone from Buffalo, Schenectady, etc., New York or from the five boroughs or from the county of New York, ie, Manhattan?

What about Netherlander instead of Dutch since it's a corruption of Deutsch. We could go on about makes sense and what doesn't.

Re: Macedonia Agrees to Change Its Name to End Bitter Dispute with Greece

#93

Post by SamReidHughes » Wed, Jun 13, 2018, 4:08 AM UTC

pavlov wrote: post #66

pwinnski wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand it, both sides had prefixes: Baja and Alta. After the US took Alta California, they dropped that prefix. Mexico was never forced to add one.

They dropped the prefix because Mexico wasn't in a position to object. I wouldn't be surprised if many expected at the time that the newly founded US state would annex Baja eventually.

We had that opportunity -- the guy negotiating the treaty decided San Diego was far enough.

Re: Macedonia Agrees to Change Its Name to End Bitter Dispute with Greece

#94

Post by Lanthanide » Wed, Jun 13, 2018, 4:10 AM UTC

interdrift wrote: post #65

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Same for Alexander Macedon (he's obviously greek) Alexander III of Macedon died in 323 B.C. That's 2,300 years ago. Turning a millennium-and-a-half footnote into a geopolitical issue is stupid. > If you claim some identity in front of many people you must be able to support it otherwise you end up looking like a fool Greece's per-capita GDP is three-quarters that of Europe's average [1]. Macedonia's is less than on…

A lot of these things are not about wealth, they are about identity. Wealth is much easier to create than identity.

Things get a bit more difficult when the identity is standing in the way of creating wealth. This seems to be the case here, assuming EU/NATO memberships would be largely positive economic forces for Macedonia.

Re: Macedonia Agrees to Change Its Name to End Bitter Dispute with Greece

#95

Post by s_trumpet » Wed, Jun 13, 2018, 6:49 AM UTC

pavlov wrote: post #25

pwinnski wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the "Baja" in this case (or its lack in the USA) is like the compromise, "North" Macedonia. The situations would be more analogous if the Mexican state were called simply "California" or the US state were called "Baja California."

In both cases, the bigger and more powerful side got to keep the plain name and the other side had to settle for a geographic prefix.

counterpoint: the Indian state of West Bengal and the country of Bangladesh (lit. Land of the Bengali).

Re: Macedonia Agrees to Change Its Name to End Bitter Dispute with Greece

#96

Post by DrScump » Wed, Jun 13, 2018, 6:52 AM UTC

pwinnski wrote: post #16

pavlov wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of Maine, you can find a better analogy at the opposite end of the United States. There’s a Mexican state named Baja California and a US state named simply California. Exact same thing as this Macedonia business.

Except the "Baja" in this case (or its lack in the USA) is like the compromise, "North" Macedonia. The situations would be more analogous if the Mexican state were called simply "California" or the US state were called "Baja California."

The Baja peninsula includes two separate Mexican states: Baja California and Baja California Sur.

Re: Macedonia Agrees to Change Its Name to End Bitter Dispute with Greece

#97

Post by DrScump » Wed, Jun 13, 2018, 6:55 AM UTC

labster wrote: post #23

pavlov wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of Maine, you can find a better analogy at the opposite end of the United States. There’s a Mexican state named Baja California and a US state named simply California. Exact same thing as this Macedonia business.

Not really correct. The peninsula consists of two Mexican states: Baja California Sur, and Baja California Norte. The United States dropped the "Alta" from Alta California after the process of defeating Mexico. I consider us all Californians, though, despite the political boundaries.

  Baja California Norte

No, just Baja California, or officially, the "Free and Sovereign State of Baja California" (Spanish: Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California), according to its Wikipedia entry.

Re: Macedonia Agrees to Change Its Name to End Bitter Dispute with Greece

#98

Post by DrScump » Wed, Jun 13, 2018, 6:59 AM UTC

cautionarytale wrote: post #70

chadash wrote: post #6

This is pay-walled, but here's a summary: The country we now call "Macedonia" (i.e. The Republic of Macedonia) was formed in 1991 after Yugoslavia broke up. Greece didn't like the name, because "Macedonia" was already the name of a large region in Northern Greece. This would be similar to a region of Quebec bordering the US breaking away from Canada and calling itself Maine. Some Greeks apparently felt that the Repub…

If a Canadian state decided to rename itself Maine, pretty sure Americans would have zero f *s to give about it. To quote Peter Griffin, "Who cares?!!".

Or as attributed to Al Capone: "I don't even know what street Canada is on."

Re: Macedonia Agrees to Change Its Name to End Bitter Dispute with Greece

#99

Post by DrScump » Wed, Jun 13, 2018, 7:05 AM UTC

smolsky wrote: post #85

Here in the Bay Area there is a smaller scale issue of the same kind between Palo Alto and East Palo Alto. In this case the former does not like the latter to have anything similar in its name... oh well.

The latter name is just nonsensical -- EPA is northwest of PA and in a different county altogether.

When the Four Seasons opened in EPA, they initially gave the address as just "Palo Alto" but with the proper EPA Zip code, knowing that the USPS would still deliver the same. Media later called them on it.

Re: Macedonia Agrees to Change Its Name to End Bitter Dispute with Greece

#100

Post by DrScump » Wed, Jun 13, 2018, 7:08 AM UTC

mkempe wrote: post #10

pavlov wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should Massachusetts change its name because the Massachusett people are not an ethnic majority there? Just like US states, most European borders are not drawn according to ethnic groups, and their names are similarly historical rather than descriptive. The nation state is a 19th century fantasy.

Are there three other "Massachusetts"-named states bordering the current Massachusetts? [edit] Maine is not called "North Massachusetts". As for your belief that European borders are unrelated to ethnic/cultural distinctions, do you know much about Europe? [edit: blocked from replying] Were there truly no pre-19th century differences between the peoples and cultures in Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Russia? and no-pre…

  Maine is not called "North Massachusetts"

What we call Maine was just a discontiguous part of Massachusetts going into the Revolution.