Close readers of OTTERBLOG will remember a post sometime back about the confusion over what to call Mumbai, formerly Bombay.
A similar debate is raging—journalistically speaking—over Burma/Myanmar, the site of civil unrest and protest in Southeast Asia. The Journal calls the country Myanmar, following Associated Press style, but not everyone agrees. This is a nice column from the Boston Globe on the controversy that gets at much of the tangled history and the power of names.
Interestingly enough, the U.S. government apparently doesn’t recognize the new name. Here’s the entry in the CIA World Factbook, easily one of the most useful sites on the Web.
Your host is Ken Otterbourg, the managing editor at the Winston-Salem Journal. It's a forum to discuss the media, from
There’s a debate in my household about whether or not my name is “Jon” (original) or “That Old Jerk” (recently assigned to me by at least one of the kids). Others have attempted to re-name me but you wouldn’t want those monikers used on a family-friendly website.
My guess is that you are the ruling junta so you can decide what you are called ...
Oh, good Lord no. I’m like every other middle-aged-married-guy-with-kids I know and that means the last time I ruled anything I was still shaving once a week. I just go where I’m told, keep my head down and hope for the best.
In the interest of honesty, I confess that my real name isn’t Esbee. In fact Esbee was a typo.
In the interest of full discloser, I also confess that my name is not Radio Smuggles and it is not a typo.
Dang it that’s full disclosure.
For all your puns, a modern billboard poem
On the blog
I’m in a fog
But I don’t fret
I blame the net
Myanmar Shave
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