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Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Call Me Old Fashioned

Writing in Comment is Free, Ian Williams pines for the good old days of Madras not Chennai and Burma not Myanmar. I am emotionally in tune here and find this kind of political correctness a little irritating. It must be a reflection of my age and the time I grew up in, when British people actually stopped eating Christmas Day lunch to listen to the Queen.

So I don't mind if the speakers of Indian English want to say Mumbai, as long as they extend the same democratic linguistic privileges to others to keep on calling it Bombay. Non-English speakers can be as nationalist as they like - in their own languages.


My High School was called Madras College and Chennai College just wouldn't cut it.

Thanks Political Umpire

1 comment:

James Higham said...

100% agree, Colin.