What’s in a Name?

I have always been fascinated by language, especially words and more specifically, names.  This interest was recently peeked by a conversation I had in the park.  I met an attractive, middle-aged, blond-haired woman who told me that she was from the Netherlands.  I asked her why the Netherlands was/were called Holland.  She told me that Holland is an important part of the country, so people call the country Holland.  She said it was like England -  there is no country named England, but people still call it that.

I told her that England is a country and that Great Britain referred to England, Scotland and Wales, what I thought were three countries on the same island - Britain.  I told her that the United Kingdom included Northern Ireland as well as the other three lands.

I checked online when I got home and found that there is some question as to whether Scotland and Wales are really countries anymore or yet.  But England is definitely a country.

Then I noticed that when reporting the news, reporters never say England to describe where London is, they say the U.K. or the United Kingdom.  Sometimes they even refer to England as the UK while then going on to mention Scotland and Wales by name as though separate.

Why can’t England be England? Why can’t Scotland and Wales be countries, again?

Then there is Europe with former countries breaking up into still previous ones.  Remember Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia?  Now they are what they were before World War 1 - Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro instead of the former and the Czech Republic and Slovenia for the latter. 

Many European countries are part of the E.U.  They share the same currency, allow free access between countries without border checks or tariffs, and are even striving for a common language, English (or should it be called British or Ukish or Euish, though it doesn’t look Euish?).  Even calling Europe E.U. is confusing since the French call America, E.U. (Etats Unis) and even more confusing when people in Latin America call themselves Americans.

In India, China and Burma, cities, states and even an entire country itself are having a name change.  What was India included what is now Pakistan and that included what is now Bangladesh.  And what was wrong with Bombay or Peiking? Whatever happened to Tibet which used to be a great independent country of monks and mystics? It is now called a part of materialistic China, but not by me. Burma isn’t always Burma, its dictators have changed its name and now we don’t know what the more P.C. name for it is.  I say stick with Burma. 

Someone once said that a rose is a rose is a rose and by any other name would smell as sweet.  I’ll call that someone Zelda since her words should be no less true if her name is changed, but they are.  A rose is a rose only because we say it is and if it were called some vulgar name, it would not be smelled at all.  It’s all perception even about perception.

So I say let’s call England, England and let’s call Tibet, Tibet.  And Burma must be Burma (too many good restaurants’ names are at stake here).  And not only do I think that the Netherlands should not be called Holland unless they officially change it and their people and language should be Netherlanders and Netherlandic, respectively or if they become Holland, the people and language should be Hollandaise.

This, I’m afraid, is my final word on the subject.