I was cruising through The Toronto Star's website today, as I do every day at work, and came across an article about the upcoming Olympics. The focus of the piece was on whether the Games are taking place in Turin or Torino and who is calling it which. (NBC calls it Torino, the Star calls it Turin and CBC calls it the Torino Games in Turin. The IOC? Torino 2006 in Turin, Italy)
At first, I was reading what the chief of the Olympic organizing committee had to say and thought, "oh, get over it already - the Games are always called by their English names".
And then I thought about it.
Wait a minute: just how did Torino become Turin, Muenchen become Munich and Roma become Rome? I mean, I can pronounce each of the "original" names, so why did they change? The article refers to the names being "anglicized", but what the heck is English about "Munich"?!
Sure, Florence might flow off the tongue easier than Firenze, but who decided "Florence" was an appropriate "translation"? It isn't even phonetic!
(Can I use any more "quotes" in this post?)
I'm a convert: for me, the games will be taking place in Torino, not Turin. Screw it: any word that can be written in the Latin/Roman alphabet should be kept as is and pronounced in its original fashion.
Change the maps back!
Did you know Moscow is Mockba? Sure Mockba kinda sucks, but Moscow sounds like a sedentary bovine, for Pete's sake...
"Until I was thirteen, I thought my name was 'shut up'."
-Joe Namath
1 comment:
You are quite clever you know and I am sure there are many other people who share in your opinion - extreme and opinionated as it may be.You should write for a real paper instead of free online. You are the master of editorials- you should really use it to your advantage. Exploit your talents. And thats an order.
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