# Ask the Geography Maven **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 8, 2000, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-geography-maven/24970 "2000-07-08T19:09:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![soulsling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@soulsling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/soulsling)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2000, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-geography-maven/24970/41 "2000-07-09T23:00:26Z")
Harrison fits. the question in the puzzle was _helped develop an accurate way for measuring longitude while seafaring_. doesn’t say anything about first or second or anything like that. here’s a geography question. Proper names for countries. as in, what do they call themselves, (which always bothered me that everyone else has names of their own for other countries already named by their native inhabitants.) Whether phonetically or completely correct. ---
**Author:** ![Oncle\_Biere](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8baadc/32.png) [@Oncle\_Biere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oncle_Biere)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2000, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-geography-maven/24970/42 "2000-07-09T23:19:10Z")
Can you answer **matt\_mcl** ’s poser about what countries are “double landlocked?” I know the answer is right there in that list, but when I try to go through it, I travel in circles. I don’t have maps with USSR and Yougoslavia broken up. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2000, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-geography-maven/24970/43 "2000-07-09T23:37:47Z")
\>\> the question in the puzzle was helped develop an accurate way for measuring longitude while seafaring. Well, we cannot ask people who build the puzzles to be accurate but my vote is that the definition is mistaken. Harrison developed a tool (the chronometer) not a “way” (which others did). As for the “why do we call other countries/places something other than what the people who live there do?”, I have had this argument many times with many people, last time as recently as yesterday. The answer is “because we speak our own language, not theirs”. My friend calls me yesterday and tells me he had a hot date with this Greek chick from Thesaloniki. I pointed out that the name of that city in English is Salonica and he immediately started an argument because he is the type of guy who just will never admit he is wrong. (Although I know that night he impressed his date by telling her how much he knows about Thesaloniki, which is Salonica in english). So he went into the (IMHO really stupid) argument that we should call places what the people who live there called them. So… What about places that are hardly pronounceable in your own language? What about places where more than one language is spoken and _they_ have different names for the place? What about places where _nobody_ lives? What about names that have meanings? Why say BeiJing when to them it means “northern capital”? The chinese call their country Zhong Guo. Should we say Zhong Guo or rather “Central Kingdom” which is what it means? Should we demand from them reciprocity and ask them to stop calling America MeiGuo? What about man-made structures (castles, bridges, great walls, etc)? What about products of a specific region? (Sherry is Jerez in Spanish) What about _any_ product? If a central American sweatshop makes an item and calls it a “jalipa”, who are you to call it anything else? Where do you draw the line? The fact is we speak _our_ language, not theirs. And _our_ language has evolved differently. If you want to pick on such inconsistencies, the language is full of them. Why do we call a “matinee” a show that takes place in the afternoon when the meaning of the word is “morning”? Because the language has evolved, and meanings and words change. And geographical names are no different. So, for me, the capital of China is Pekin because I am speaking English. When I speak Chinese i will call it BeiJing. In English I will say HongKong even though that’s not what the natives call it. They may own the place, but they don’t own the English language. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2000, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-geography-maven/24970/44 "2000-07-10T03:36:45Z")
Sailor, I think the point is that nobody apart from a few holdouts has called it Peking for the last twenty years. Certainly not while I’ve been alive, and I’m a news maven as much as a geography one. Same goes for Salonica. I’ve never heard that used outside of limericks (where it rhymes with “harmonica”.) Do you think of English names for all the little places around the world, or do you just give up and use the language? There’s nothing inherently wrong with calling the place that the Norwegians call Norge “Norway”, but there’s also nothing wrong with calling Côte d’Ivoire “Côte d’Ivoire”. By the way, Peking isn’t an English word any more than Paris is. It’s a bad transliteration of a Chinese word. ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2000, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-geography-maven/24970/45 "2000-07-10T04:18:29Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by soulsling \* > \*\*that doesn’t fit. i’m doing a crossword. someone else? \*\* this just about made me pee my pants. I have nothing to add at this time. Please go about your business ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2000, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-geography-maven/24970/46 "2000-07-10T04:29:58Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by matt\_mcl \* > \*\* > > By the way, Peking isn’t an English word any more than Paris is. It’s a bad transliteration of a Chinese word. \*\* \*Paris \* is a chinese word? Oh lord, this will put the French in to a snit for sure. Anyways, I asked the question of “Why do we call a place one thing, while The natives have the nerve to call it something else” to my old boss, a knowledgable cranky old German. I think it was over the Munchen/Munich debate. (This is an umlaut free post, btw) Could have been over Turino/Turin, but I digress. Her answer is vague now in my mind, but I think what the answer was was something like this : The correct way to pronounce Munchen is munchen, it’s you lazy Americans that bastardize everything and slaughter the speech. Yes, I know, the clarity in this statement is underwhelming. And now, for my lame question:What is the most remotely located inhabited island in the world? ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2000, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-geography-maven/24970/47 "2000-07-10T06:21:45Z")
Matt, you missed my point which is that a language is alive and in evolution and words change. To say Peking is not an English word is plain wrong. It was coined by the English and to say it is a bad transliteration of a foreign word, … well, yes, most of the English language is composed of words that are bad transliterations of Latin or greek or french of Spanish or German or some other foreign language. But that is what English is. Or will you call me Monsieur Sailor because, after all, “mister” is just a bad transliteration of that French word? Not to mention a huge number of geographical names in North America which are bad transliterations of native names, so maybe we should change that as well. I am not saying it is “wrong” to use the native name but I _am_ saying it is wrong to say we should not use the English name. You haven’t seen Peking used in a long time? Christopher Patten, the last governor of Hong Kong wrote a book titled “East and West” in 1998 and that’s what he calls the capital of China throughout the book (which I would recommend, although maybe not to you). I am not saying Beijing is wrong, I am saying a language has a right to have its own name. In English, French, Spanish, the name was and is Peking which is not just a bad transliteration as you put it. The name remained Peking even though the Chinese name changed a few times back and forth. Then in the 50s and 60s the Chinese government, to avoid the mess of having many different systems of romanizing Chinese, developed a system which they called PinYin and in pinyin the capital of China is romanized as BeiJing but this is a Chinese word not an English word. I am not against using it if you like it but to those who say we should use the native words I say OK: HongKong is XianGang, Canton is GuangDong, Germany is Deutchland, Austria is Ostereich, Spain is España… Summary: IMHO saying the native name should always be used is dumb. BTW, Shirley, you misread Matt’s sentence. He did not say Paris was a Chinese word ---
**Author:** ![lurkernomore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d6d6ee/32.png) [@lurkernomore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lurkernomore)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2000, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-geography-maven/24970/48 "2000-07-10T13:09:46Z")
[QUOTE] \*Originally posted by Shirley Ujest \* \*\* > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by matt\_mcl \* > \*\* > > Anyways, I asked the question of “Why do we call a place one thing, while The natives have the nerve to call it something else” to my old boss, a knowledgable cranky old German. > > I think it was over the Munchen/Munich debate. (This is an umlaut free post, btw) Could have been over Turino/Turin, but I digress. Her answer is vague now in my mind, but I think what the answer was was something like this : > The correct way to pronounce Munchen is munchen, it’s you lazy Americans that bastardize everything and slaughter the speech. > > \*\* Then ask why the Germans call Vienna Wien? Do the Austrians call it that? ---
**Author:** ![Cumulus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6bbea6/32.png) [@Cumulus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cumulus)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2000, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-geography-maven/24970/49 "2000-07-10T13:35:45Z")
Oncle Biere asked: > [@](#): > > Can you answer matt\_mcl’s poser about > > what countries are “double landlocked?” > > I know the answer is right there in that list, but when I try to go through it, I travel in circles. I don’t have maps with USSR and Yougoslavia broken up. I’ve already answered Liechstenstein but I can’t identify the other one. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2000, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-geography-maven/24970/50 "2000-07-10T14:53:01Z")
I posted this one on the Trivia thread, but you might not have seen it there. This is appropriate for a “geography maven” There is, of course, one place in the US where four states come together at a single point. There are plenty of places where three states come together in a single point. There is, however, only one set of three states that come together not only in one single point, but in three separate and distinct places. What are the three states? And how can they do this? ---
**Author:** ![Cumulus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6bbea6/32.png) [@Cumulus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cumulus)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2000, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-geography-maven/24970/51 "2000-07-10T15:37:24Z")
That’s a tough one. Is it Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2000, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-geography-maven/24970/52 "2000-07-10T16:12:34Z")
Nope. It’s got nothing to do with DelMarVa. If you get the right map, you can see how it happens. I KNOW you can get this one. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2000, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-geography-maven/24970/53 "2000-07-10T16:14:03Z")
I board a jet in Philadelphia, and fly due south until I crash at the Tropic of Capricorn. In what ocean am I? ---
**Author:** ![Spiritus\_Mundi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c68b51/32.png) [@Spiritus\_Mundi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiritus_Mundi)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2000, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-geography-maven/24970/54 "2000-07-10T16:43:04Z")
[/quote] By the way, Peking isn’t an English word any more than Paris is. It’s a bad transliteration of a Chinese word. [quote] Wish I could remember where I saw this particular pice of fun . . . IIRC, the British linguists who gave us the word “Peking” always intended for it to be pronounced “Beijing”. I have no idea whether that information is true, but I remember reading it several years ago and having 2 immediate urges: 1. laugh out loud 2. grab a clue stick and start thwapping the nearest British linguist. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2000, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-geography-maven/24970/55 "2000-07-10T16:43:32Z")
> [@](#): > > Then ask why the Germans call Vienna Wien? Do the Austrians call it that? All German-speaking nations (Austria, Germany, eastern Switzerland) refer to _Wien_. Vienna is probably through French. Uzbekistan is the other double-landlocked country. The flight from Philadelphia crashes in the Pacific. ---
**Author:** ![Spiritus\_Mundi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c68b51/32.png) [@Spiritus\_Mundi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiritus_Mundi)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2000, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-geography-maven/24970/56 "2000-07-10T16:47:03Z")
_sigh_ I also wish that I had bothered to preview that before posting. Now where’s that clue stick . . . ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2000, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-geography-maven/24970/57 "2000-07-10T18:40:30Z")
Spiritus Mundi and friends: I’ve always been frustrated by geographical names that were written down by a small clique with an irregular sense of orthography, then inflicted upon the rest of the world. “Pago Pago” is another such case – apparently it’s really pronounced “Pango Pango” because an “n” is always “understood” to be before the “g” in the local language. (The same sort of thing happens in Japanese, where “tu” is always pronounced “tsu”, and in Chinese, where “T’” is “T”, but “T” is “D”, thus giving us “wonton”, pronounced more like “wundun”. In upstate New York the same thing happened, so you have “Nunda”, pronounced “Nun-Day”. I often wonder id there’s a Nunda Hyundai dealer. ---
**Author:** ![Cumulus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6bbea6/32.png) [@Cumulus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cumulus)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2000, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-geography-maven/24970/58 "2000-07-10T18:42:10Z")
Ok, maybe it has something to do with the Great Lakes. Is it Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2000, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-geography-maven/24970/59 "2000-07-10T19:46:11Z")
Nope. Look elsewhere. Get a very detailed map of the relevant borders. Obviously it doesn’t show up on a map of the entire country. ---
**Author:** ![eponymous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e0b2c6/32.png) [@eponymous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eponymous)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2000, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-geography-maven/24970/60 "2000-07-10T20:14:29Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Cumulus \* > \*\*Before I provide you with a cite for Erastothenes’ experiment regarding the circumference of the earth, let me respond to your challenge. > > I don’t know about IRC Undernet but I can certainly participate here. > > What do you say? > > Challenge No. 1: > > Burkina Faso \*\* Cumulus, I’ll take the challenge - Ouagadougou [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-geography-maven/24970.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-geography-maven/24970.md?page=4)