# In the future, when I fly to the capital of Ohio, will it be to "Indiginous People's City"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 7, 2017, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-future-when-i-fly-to-the-capital-of-ohio-will-it-be-to-indiginous-peoples-city/798190 "2017-10-07T11:29:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2017, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-future-when-i-fly-to-the-capital-of-ohio-will-it-be-to-indiginous-peoples-city/798190/41 "2017-10-08T17:23:20Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > As Socrates said, “The unexamined life is a lot of fun to live.” > > Or something that. I’m not too sure. I don’t know of any statues of Socrates in my area, so my grasp of Greek history is very tenuous. Well, there you go – call it Socrates Day. And then rename the city Atlantis. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2017, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-future-when-i-fly-to-the-capital-of-ohio-will-it-be-to-indiginous-peoples-city/798190/42 "2017-10-08T17:32:47Z")
Perhaps the best idea of all is to stop cooking up ways to pit people against each other, ala cultural appropriate, white privilege, Confederacy symbols and disappearing names and people from history. All this does nothing but foster hate and resentment for people on both sides. ---
**Author:** ![Foggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foggy/32/1082_2.png) [@Foggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Foggy)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2017, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-future-when-i-fly-to-the-capital-of-ohio-will-it-be-to-indiginous-peoples-city/798190/43 "2017-10-08T21:25:52Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > [snip]…and disappearing names and people from history. All this does nothing but foster hate and resentment for people on both sides. Nobody is suggesting this. History is still there, nothing has been disappeared. Removing memorials & renaming places and things that honor people who were total asshats is recognize that they were total asshats. Do you think the statues of Saddam Hussein, Lenin, & Joe Paterno should be restored? History is about the good, the bad & the ugly. We shouldn’t honor the ugly, nor whitewash it. ---
**Author:** ![Foggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foggy/32/1082_2.png) [@Foggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Foggy)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2017, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-future-when-i-fly-to-the-capital-of-ohio-will-it-be-to-indiginous-peoples-city/798190/44 "2017-10-08T21:28:25Z")
> [@Foggy](#): > > We are not changing history, just the name of things. We change the name of things all the time for a variety of reasons. > > Personally, I never liked naming things after people to begin with. This ^^ X1000 ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2017, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-future-when-i-fly-to-the-capital-of-ohio-will-it-be-to-indiginous-peoples-city/798190/45 "2017-10-08T21:31:45Z")
I called Columbus my home for maybe 35 years of my life. 1 year I lived on San Salvador (aka Watling’s Island) where there are 3 monuments in 3 different locations stating this is the site where Chris first set foot on the New World. For this name change to get any traction at all, there would have to be a huge influx of Native Americans into the city, county, and state. I just don’t see it happening. And if it came to a citywide vote in November, there’d be a huge group who’d vote to change the name of Columbus to “Fuck Michigan”. And that isn’t 100% a joke. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2017, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-future-when-i-fly-to-the-capital-of-ohio-will-it-be-to-indiginous-peoples-city/798190/46 "2017-10-08T22:59:01Z")
> [@Foggy](#): > > Joe Paterno Oh you do NOT want to go there. Trust me on that. (Unless, of course, you did that on purpose) ---
**Author:** ![Foggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foggy/32/1082_2.png) [@Foggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Foggy)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2017, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-future-when-i-fly-to-the-capital-of-ohio-will-it-be-to-indiginous-peoples-city/798190/47 "2017-10-09T02:14:50Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Oh you do NOT want to go there. Trust me on that. (Unless, of course, you did that on purpose) No, they were the only statues I could think of off the top of my head, without digging thru Wikipedia. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2017, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-future-when-i-fly-to-the-capital-of-ohio-will-it-be-to-indiginous-peoples-city/798190/48 "2017-10-09T03:16:56Z")
> [@Foggy](#): > > No, they were the only statues I could think of off the top of my head, without digging thru Wikipedia. Well, then just let it go. Trust me, it will only end in a 100+ page Pit thread. ---
**Author:** ![snfaulkner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snfaulkner/32/433_2.png) [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2017, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-future-when-i-fly-to-the-capital-of-ohio-will-it-be-to-indiginous-peoples-city/798190/49 "2017-10-09T03:32:41Z")
In the future, I don’t see any reason to ever go to Columbus again. They could call it Brutuston Buckeyeville for all I care. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2017, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-future-when-i-fly-to-the-capital-of-ohio-will-it-be-to-indiginous-peoples-city/798190/50 "2017-10-09T07:13:56Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > This is a ridiculous pile of crap. > > Nobody is doing anything to _history_ by renaming things. If the past is another country, then we have a right in this country (the present) to decide what we want things named after. > > Changing the name of the City of Columbus, Ohio, does nothing to the history or biography of Christopher Columbus. > > It doesn’t even do anything to the history of the City of Columbus, Ohio. It just becomes part of the history of the city. It used to be named “Columbus” and now it’s named something else. That also goes into the history books. > > Why should they matter? What should they matter for? Each day I wake up in Columbus, Ohio, is a new day when I get to decide whether I want to honor Christopher Columbus in the name of the city. It’s not something he, or his history, or his memory, has a right to. > > It is right now. It might not be tomorrow. Whether or not things currently named for Henry Hudson remain named for Henry Hudson in the future really has nothing to do with Henry Hudson’s biography or the history of the world. > > This isn’t even an argument. It’s a series of meaningless questions. If the People of X decide they want to rename X, that means nothing regarding whether or not the People of Y must rename Y. Maybe neither will want to rename. Maybe one but not the other will want to rename. Maybe all of them will be renamed. There’s nothing wrong in principle with any of those things happening. People can do whatever they want. Names do change… but for some reason, changing the name of a prominent place (a large city, a major street, etc.) is a major disruption. Didn’t work so well for Leningrad or Stalingrad, or Cape Kennedy… Constantinople didn’t get the works until the twilight of the Ottoman empire, centuries after Byzantium sank into the dusk and almost two millennia after Constantine. Noisy people with an axe to grind or dictators tend to impose change that has trouble outlasting them. Changes like Burkina Faso or Mumbai or Myanmar work because the vast majority of the locals prefer to not have a foreign name imposed. I don’t see that resentment as a factor in place names like Columbus Ohio or Washington DC. Most of the current agitation for Amerigo-land name changes is a small group of disturbers with little constructive to add. There’s the story that when Canada split the Northwest Territories into the Inuit dominated Nunavut and the rest, the leftover was going to have a contest/referendum to pick a new name for the Northwest Territories. they abandoned the idea when polls showed the trending favourite was “Bob”. I await the disputes arising when the first settlers on the Moon or Mars begin to question why they should accept name imposed by earthly astronomers decades and centuries ago. Mare Tranquilis? What’s this Latin crap, and what did they expect on a baked vaccum? Crashing waves and loud noises? ---
**Author:** ![LongTimeLurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/45deac/32.png) [@LongTimeLurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LongTimeLurker)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2017, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-future-when-i-fly-to-the-capital-of-ohio-will-it-be-to-indiginous-peoples-city/798190/51 "2017-10-09T07:59:31Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > \ > I mean, FFS, Columbus Day is a fake holiday that was originally invented as the Italian version of St. Patrick’s day. He was an Italian hired by Spaniards who landed in the Caribbean thinking he was in India. He had nothing to do with Ohio or Washington D. C or the English colonies or the US government. He’s literally nothing to us. Why do we keep flogging this horse? I guess I misunderstood the question. My answer was why would you fly to the capitol of Ohio when you can take the HyperLoop there instead? Unless you are a government employee, Columbus Day is not a holiday, it is a day off for government employee’s. Removing this bogus celebration from the federal employee time off calendar will almost save enough taxpayer money to pay for the golf cart fees that Trump chareges the Secret Service for. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2017, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-future-when-i-fly-to-the-capital-of-ohio-will-it-be-to-indiginous-peoples-city/798190/52 "2017-10-09T09:18:32Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > People can do whatever they want. Names do change… but for some reason, changing the name of a prominent place (a large city, a major street, etc.) is a major disruption. Didn’t work so well for Leningrad or Stalingrad, or Cape Kennedy… Or Karl Marx Stadt (Chemnitz). Ho Chi Minh City is still there, though. > [@](#): > > Constantinople didn’t get the works until the twilight of the Ottoman empire, centuries after Byzantium sank into the dusk and almost two millennia after Constantine. The Turks were not native to the Ottoman Empire, so they just took over the already existing names. However many of those names had already been watered down by centuries of use and then some got modified because of Turkish pronunciation rules. For example, Smyrna became Izmir because Turkish doesn’t have words that begin with a consonant cluster starting with S. Constantinople had already been watered down to something like “Stanbul” before they took it over, but then got modified by the aforementioned rule. The name change in the 20th century just acknowledged the actual pronunciation they’d been using for centuries. > [@](#): > > Noisy people with an axe to grind or dictators tend to impose change that has trouble outlasting them. Changes like Burkina Faso or Mumbai or Myanmar work because the vast majority of the locals prefer to not have a foreign name imposed. My understanding is that a lot of people in Mumbai prefer the old name. It’s just one (or maybe two) ethnic groups that wanted the name change. I’m not sure if they’re a majority in that city or just a plurality. At any rate, there was no city there before the British built it, so Mumbai is not historically accurate or anything. ---
**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2017, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-future-when-i-fly-to-the-capital-of-ohio-will-it-be-to-indiginous-peoples-city/798190/53 "2017-10-09T12:42:55Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Bunghole of America has a certain … air … to it. 😃 No, the USPS will _never_ go for it as they don’t like two towns with the same name in the same state…& they already have a “Cleveland”. > [@Foggy](#): > > This ^^ X1000 Upvoting your own posts? :o ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2017, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-future-when-i-fly-to-the-capital-of-ohio-will-it-be-to-indiginous-peoples-city/798190/54 "2017-10-09T13:31:28Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > Or Karl Marx Stadt (Chemnitz). Didn’t know that used to be the name. I sort of prefer the former because in the Europe version of Ticket To Ride it’s difficult to not say “Chemnutz”. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2017, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-future-when-i-fly-to-the-capital-of-ohio-will-it-be-to-indiginous-peoples-city/798190/55 "2017-10-09T13:58:50Z")
Maybe we should try something more subtle - change “Columbus” to “Colobus”. Because who doesn’t like monkeys? ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2017, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-future-when-i-fly-to-the-capital-of-ohio-will-it-be-to-indiginous-peoples-city/798190/56 "2017-10-09T14:01:02Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > But seeing as the city itself doesn’t really honor Columbus, and most people don’t even make the connection, I doubt it will change. This is different from Columbus Day, which is specifically honoring him. Eh? The city was named specifically after him, and there’s a [giant statue downtown](http://www.dispatch.com/news/20170820/demonstrators-rally-at-city-hall-to-bring-down-christopher-columbus-statue). I would say most people who live here know it was named after him, and most people who don’t live here probably make the assumption based on there being no other prominent Columbuses it could be named after. To the OP, I could totally see the city being renamed at some point, but they political climate isn’t ripe for it right now. If they did rename it, something inane like “Capital City” would be probably be high up on the list. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2017, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-future-when-i-fly-to-the-capital-of-ohio-will-it-be-to-indiginous-peoples-city/798190/57 "2017-10-09T14:04:41Z")
> [@steronz](#): > > Eh? The city was named specifically after him, and there’s a [giant statue downtown](http://www.dispatch.com/news/20170820/demonstrators-rally-at-city-hall-to-bring-down-christopher-columbus-statue). I would say most people who live here know it was named after him, and most people who don’t live here probably make the assumption based on there being no other prominent Columbuses it could be named after. Maybe they just really like _[Home Alone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Columbus_(filmmaker))_? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2017, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-future-when-i-fly-to-the-capital-of-ohio-will-it-be-to-indiginous-peoples-city/798190/58 "2017-10-09T14:26:59Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > changing the name of a prominent place (a large city, a major street, etc.) is a major disruption. Didn’t work so well for Leningrad or Stalingrad, or Cape Kennedy… This is debatable. But it has nothing to do with my criticism of your prior post. So I can’t figure out why it’s written like a response. > [@](#): > > Noisy people with an axe to grind or dictators tend to impose change that has trouble outlasting them. Who said anything about “imposing” change? And after your paean to honoring history—an argument packed top to bottom with sanctimonious and nostalgic horse hockey—it’s pretty rich for you to dismiss the other side as “noisy people with an axe to grind.” After all, the world is full of monuments to people, pretty must all of whom could be summed up as “noisy people with an axe to grind.” > [@](#): > > Most of the current agitation for Amerigo-land name changes is a small group of disturbers with little constructive to add. Personally, I don’t know anyone agitating for “Amerigo-land name changes,” and I certainly have know idea, to the extent that they exist, whether any of them have anything constructive to add (to something). I doubt very much that you do either. > [@](#): > > I await the disputes arising when the first settlers on the Moon or Mars begin to question why they should accept name imposed by earthly astronomers decades and centuries ago. Mare Tranquilis? What’s this Latin crap, and what did they expect on a baked vaccum? Crashing waves and loud noises? This paragraph is in the form of satire, I guess, but has none of its substance. I see no moral, ethical, educational, or any other substantial value in either keeping or or changing names of features of the moon. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2017, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-future-when-i-fly-to-the-capital-of-ohio-will-it-be-to-indiginous-peoples-city/798190/59 "2017-10-09T15:20:05Z")
It would be only a temporary nuisance to rename the place after a prominent local Native American. Tecumseh would be the obvious choice, but [Leatherlips](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leatherlips)has an attractiveness of its own. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2017, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-future-when-i-fly-to-the-capital-of-ohio-will-it-be-to-indiginous-peoples-city/798190/60 "2017-10-09T16:44:15Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > All this does nothing but foster hate and resentment for people on both sides. It only fosters hate on one side… the outside of a library, in which the actual history is safely stored for anybody who cares enough to read about it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-future-when-i-fly-to-the-capital-of-ohio-will-it-be-to-indiginous-peoples-city/798190.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-future-when-i-fly-to-the-capital-of-ohio-will-it-be-to-indiginous-peoples-city/798190.md?page=4)