King of Swaziland decrees change of nation’s name

[GenExpwy]

King Mswati III, absolute ruler of Swaziland, has decreed that the name of the nation will now be "Kingdom of eSwatini" , in part because of persistent confusion with Switzerland.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-43821512
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-swaziland-monarch-country/africas-last-absolute-monarch-renames-swaziland-as-eswatini-idUSKBN1HQ2NO

[hotdogPi]

Confusion with Switzerland? What about Austria and Australia, or Mauritius and Mauritania?

[vdeane]

Sounds like the name of an internet store from the 90s.

[KeithE4Phx]

It's good to be the King. 

[webny99]

Confusion with Switzerland? What about Austria and Australia, or Mauritius and Mauritania?

Not to mention the scads of countries ending in -istan (I still can keep any of them straight).

[hotdogPi]

Confusion with Switzerland? What about Austria and Australia, or Mauritius and Mauritania?

Not to mention the scads of countries ending in -istan (I still can keep any of them straight).

That's equivalent to there being Iceland, Poland, England, Greenland, Alanland, Ireland, Netherlands, New Zealand, etc. It would be easier to remember the -stans if you lived in Asia, closer to them.

[Road Hog]

If billionaires are looking for a bank account, I would think being confused with Switzerland would be a good thing.

[webny99]

Confusion with Switzerland? What about Austria and Australia, or Mauritius and Mauritania?

Not to mention the scads of countries ending in -istan (I still can keep any of them straight).

That's equivalent to there being Iceland, Poland, England, Greenland, Alanland, Ireland, Netherlands, New Zealand, etc. It would be easier to remember the -stans if you lived in Asia, closer to them.

In that case, confusing Swaziland and Switzerland shouldn't be surprising. Unlike the other examples, they actually sound (somewhat) similar and have the same amount of syllables.
I, for one, don't usually mix up Austria with Australia (or Australasia  ).

[Road Hog]

Austria ....

G'DAY MATE!

[english si]

Not to mention the scads of countries ending in -istan (I still can keep any of them straight).

Really? Not even one or two?

I can very much understand Turkmeni- and Tajiki-, and perhaps Kazakh- and Kyrgyz- due to the similar rest of the names, and Uzbeki-/Tajiki-/Turkmeni-/Kyrgyz- due to all being a cluster of somewhat similar size and shape, but Pakistan is surely easy to keep straight with its non-similar name and obvious geographic location? And surely Afghanistan has been on the news enough this century for its shape to be recognisable?

In other similar names - Niger and Nigeria; Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana and Equatorial Guinea; Slovenia and Slovakia; DRC and ROC.

Even somewhat less similarly named countries in close geographical proximity don't help - Latvia and Lithuania, Montenegro and Macedonia, Iran and Iraq (though the news has mostly been a help there, though sometimes they've got it wrong).

[CNGL-Leudimin]

Don't forget Dominica and the Dominican republic.

Anyway, I decided to continue knowing the country as Swaziland, much like I do with Burma, Ivory Coast and (only in Spanish) Byelorussia (Interesting enough, I don't do the same for Cabo Verde since this is already its name in Spanish).

[Henry]

Sounds like an April Fool's joke, albeit several days late.

I know about all the countries, and it's not just limited to those. States and provinces have that problem too (IL and IN; MS and MO; MB and MN; NB and NL, among others).

[renegade]

Confusion with Switzerland? What about Austria and Australia, or Mauritius and Mauritania?

I don't think King Mswati III would have any say over those.

[cjk374]

It's good to be the King. 

Dilly dilly!!!

[english si]

Dilly dilly!!!

To the pit of misery with you!

As a torturer. Going 'dilly dilly' every time someone speaks and pouring kegs of Bud Light (sometimes Bud Light Lime for added horror) on the miscreants once a shift is all you need do - the misery is absolute.

[formulanone]

It's good to be the King. 

[empirestate]

Confusion with Switzerland? What about [...] Mauritius and Mauritania?

Well, most people have heard of neither; so, if there's any confusion, it stems from the fact that these countries even exist, rather than distinguishing between the two.

[1995hoo]

... "Kingdom of eSwatini"  ....

Too bad they're landlocked so they don't have a bay.

[triplemultiplex]

"eSwatini" sounds like a drink you'd order at a bar.

[index]

"eSwatini" sounds like a drink you'd order at a bar.

It sounds like a lot of things. When I first read "eSwatini", the first thing that came to my mind was a video I had seen ages ago. For some reason, "Swatini" refreshed my memory on this video, I had no idea I even remembered it until now. Funny the name change of a country reminded me of a tiny little ridiculous memory from a while ago.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGGOn-H7s3Q

[abefroman329]

He also changed the official language of Swaziland to Swedish and declared that all children under 16 years of age are now 16 years of age.

[kkt]

Confusion with Switzerland? What about Austria and Australia, or Mauritius and Mauritania?

Yes.  A friend of mine used to send letters and packages to her dad in Vienna, and finally starting addressing them with EUROPE written at the end of the address, because otherwise they all went the (very) long way.

Sounds like the name of an internet store from the 90s.

[jwolfer]

My friend I grew up with was born in Australia.. she had someone tell her you speak English so well for being from Australia

Z981

[Chris]

What to think of the Slovenia / Slovakia fiasco  And throw in the nearby Slavonia region too!

We have the problem of Dutch  > Holland > Netherlands. Three names for the same thing. In Dutch it's just "Nederland(s)".

"Holland" is a region, it makes up 2 of the 12 provinces. A Dutchman would not refer to the country as Holland in Dutch, though it's common in English for simplification issues. Holland is also a bit of an international brand name for the Netherlands.

[Scott5114]

I had a Internet friend from a Dutch town near the German border (can't remember the name of it at the moment), not in the Holland region, who was very particular about people referring to the country as Holland. He made the point that it was rather like referring to Houston as being in "California" because that is one of the United States's best known regions.