quote:

Originally posted by joel9507:
Assuming one grants the locality the ability to define what correct is for their territory, English has been known to change. This has happened recently, from Cambodia, Peking, Bombay, Calcutta, Canton, etc. so why not go with the locals in dropping the 'the' here?

Of course, you could then ask...if we go with the locals, why is it still "Moscow" instead of the local "Moskva" and why is it "Munich" instead of "Műnchen" and so on....

Shoot, there are some that are farther off than that. Greeks call Greece “Ellas” (in Greek, of course… this is just the nearest transliteration to the Latin alphabet) and the Japanese call Japan something between “Nihon” and “Nippon” (again, in Japanese… the two spellings are because the middle sound is one that doesn’t exist in English).

Language means quite a bit. Names of cities are frequently changed by war, politics etc (Leningrad, Istanbul, Mumbai).

I always defer to the people who live in the place, as to what the place should be called. The Spanish name for the Utah valley was Nuestra Señora de los Timpanogos, but it would hardly be appropriate to call it that today.

Besides, it’s not that hard to pronounce “key-iv” than it is to pronounce “key-yev”…

The word “Utah” is a Ute word. That predates the Spanish, but its real strength lies in its simplicity, which is my point, really.

quote:

Originally posted by reloader-1:


I always defer to the people who live in the place, as to what the place should be called.

Cool bro

So you use München, Nürnberg and Moskva then?

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
The below article points out that the “the” was dropped from the “proper” name of Ukraine at the insistence of the country itself.

For very good reason: "The Ukraine" was the way Russia referred to the country when it was still part of the USSR. Since it became an independent country it wants it emphasized it's an independent country, not a region of something bigger.

I've a friend who's Ukrainian. He objected, vehemently, to "The Ukraine" even while Ukraine was still part of the USSR.

Not only in Russian. In Poland, Ukraine also means "borderlands" which it actually was for centuries.

I suspect the "The" was added as the word was translated into English.

In any case, the Ukrainians have spoken on the topic and have made it clear they wish to be called Ukraine and not The Ukraine.

quote:

Originally posted by Jimmo952:
I suspect the "The" was added as the word was translated into English.

There are many examples of place names becoming corrupted in pronunciation and/or spelling when they were first introduced long ago by English speaking travelers to other English speakers. I’ve always thought that that practice was often due to ignorance, carelessness, and/or arrogance of people who thought there was no reason to pay close attention to the originals.

Sometimes things get corrected for various reasons, but other times they don’t for various reasons, including because they would be too much of a wrench either intellectually or emotionally for most people to adapt to. And just as some people are discombobulated by the thought of referring to Kiev as Kyiv today, there is the occasional pushback. Mark Twain made fun of the people who had traveled to (The) France and came back pronouncing the capital as “pair-ee” rather than the good old proper American way as “pair-iss.” (“Hell! That’s how it’s spelled; how else would you say it?”) Who could possibly prevail in face of criticism like that?

Why isn't John Kerry, Greta Thunberg, and all of the other eco-fascists screaming for the war to stop due to the contribution to global warming and increasing the carbon footprint of Ukraine??

quote:

Originally posted by Rightwire:
Why isn't John Kerry, Greta Thunberg, and all of the other eco-fascists screaming for the war to stop due to the contribution to global warming and increasing the carbon footprint of Ukraine??

Uhhh, that's exactly what John Kerry did, for that exact reason.

And got precisely the (lack of) response one would expect. Luuuuurrch.

By the way, this wasn't even two months ago...

Colonel Doug MacGregor on Trey Gowdy last night. I previously held his opinions in pretty high regard, but he went full retard here.



Jennifer Griffin, who followed him, pretty much tore him a new one.

https://www.foxnews.com/shows/...rica-with-trey-gowdy

^^^Full Retard? You really think he's that far off the mark there?

quote:

Originally posted by nhracecraft:
^^^Full Retard? You really think he's that far off the mark there?

Yeah, he said what a lot of people think about Putin. That being said he did make it sound like its our fault the Ukrainians wanted protection from Russia by joining NATO and The European Union. Even after the Ukrainian bids were rejected. If Putin doesn't want NATO at its doorstep then he needs to be better friends to those border countries and that is entirely Putin's fault.

I borrowed the below, so it isn't mine.
However, it is very interesting.

-Seizing evidence and neutralizing US DoD funded bio-weapons labs in Ukraine
-Rattling NATO member countries so badly they are considering actually paying their 2% fees
-Destroying the slush-fund money-laundering racket of Biden, Romney, Pelosi, Hillary et al that is Ukraine
-Exposing a ton of false propaganda Fake News media videos recycled from practically a decade ago
-Dismantling piece by piece the NWO dream of Poppy Bush

And this will all be inextricably linked to exposing election corruption in the US and the other countries

quote:

Originally posted by gw3971:
... he did make it sound like its our fault the Ukrainians wanted protection from Russia by joining NATO and The European Union.

He's far from alone in that view.

Imagine how we'd have reacted if, say, Mexico made overtures to the USSR about joining the Warsaw Pact? You don't have to. Just look at how we reacted to Cuba making friends with the USSR.

I'm quickly finding out that you have to take EVERY story, account, article and video out of Ukraine with a giant grain of salt. A lot of it is turning out to be complete bullshit, like the video a guy from work told me about where he saw "brave" Ukrainians are raining down Molotov cocktails on Russian tanks, stopping them dead.

Turns out it's footage from 2014, from some big protest in Ukraine and it was Ukrainian protestors throwing Molotov cocktails at Ukrainian riot vehicles and military armor.

FFS

My Wife's family is still stuck, we are praying for ANY cease fire so we can get them hopefully to Russia then Poland via Minsk. We considered me going into westeren Ukraine....literally with a bag full of cash but they cannot get to the Dnieper due to lack of fuel.

Kharkov is being hit very hard each night and the Russians and Ukrainians have traded down town twice now. They are on the West side as their neighborhood looks like Beirut on a bad day now. Also they are in the direct path the Ukrainians will take if the leave the AO, near the M03 to Poltava/Kiev.

Besides the obvious my biggest fear if the lack of food, we are already seeing looting, one person breaks into a kiosk or store and hands out food.

The use of grads and MLRS on the city proper has happened now 2-3 times now. For the most part both sides' soldiers are leaving the civilians alone but war is not clean by it's nature.

Besides updates from the family I have been reading Michael De La Broc on Telegram and XapbKOB Live ( in Russian) also the you tube channel Felix Rex has had Michal on daily for a pretty good non-slanted run down.

And all reports are showing the Russians have not been performing as well as everyone thought they would, some are blaming the light touch they are giving this invasion, some the lack of logistics as they thought Ukraine would roll up in a day or 2 and they are bypassing pockets of resistance which is biting them literally in the ass as those pockets are ambushing the russian log train(my choice) or the way they are using conscripts as oppose to their contract soldiers (similar to our all volunteer military in their front echelons (also my choice)

I truly hope that you can get them to safety.

quote:

Originally posted by dewhorse:
Besides the obvious my biggest fear if the lack of food, we are already seeing looting, one person breaks into a kiosk or store and hands out food.

That's sad, but potentially understandable. Desperate survival in a war zone.

It's said that the average city/suburb dweller has less than a week of food in their home at any given time, and we're already on Day 5 of this war. (Although I believe that's probably most accurate for the US/western world, and the average Ukrainian may have a different mindset about food storage.)

It's definitely not the same as if they were breaking into stores to loot luxury goods like TVs and shoes, like the usual looting here in the US.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:

quote:

Originally posted by gw3971:
... he did make it sound like its our fault the Ukrainians wanted protection from Russia by joining NATO and The European Union.

He's far from alone in that view.

Imagine how we'd have reacted if, say, Mexico made overtures to the USSR about joining the Warsaw Pact? You don't have to. Just look at how we reacted to Cuba making friends with the USSR.

There are just a few problems with that, first, that it isn’t the Cold War anymore, and second, that Estonia and Latvia are already members of NATO that border Russia a few hundred miles from Moscow.

The “I won’t have NATO on my border” rhetoric conveniently ignores that NATO has been there since 2004.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
I'm quickly finding out that you have to take EVERY story, account, article and video out of Ukraine with a giant grain of salt. A lot of it is turning out to be complete bullshit, like the video a guy from work told me about where he saw "brave" Ukrainians are raining down Molotov cocktails on Russian tanks, stopping them dead.

Turns out it's footage from 2014, from some big protest in Ukraine and it was Ukrainian protestors throwing Molotov cocktails at Ukrainian riot vehicles and military armor.

FFS

How come with all the thousands of cell phones these days no has any pics/footage of the Ukraine/Russian firefights, I mean if they’re stopping them cold in many areas? All we get is an explosion here and there on camera. And the one Russian tank that the Ukraines found stopped on the road, they offered to tow back to Russia for them. Something very strange about the whole stinking deal!