Minor things that bother you

[kphoger]

Yes, and you're the one making the decision that it's okay for him to call you Lyle. If you're cool with that, there's no issue. But it's unreasonable to assume everyone should always make the same decision as you. (What if you had an evil twin brother named Lyle, so being called that gave you the willies?)

And the same person can feel different ways about being called different things. I hate being called Scoot and will protest that, but people usually mispronounce "Nazelrod" and, like you being called Lyle, it doesn't bother me enough to be worth the effort correcting them. Everyone has different quirks like that and that's okay.

You weren't OK with people calling you 'Scoot' for years and then one day decided everyone had to stop.  To me, that's different.  And that's what Nauru and Turkey are doing.  They apparently didn't have a problem with us calling them Nauru and Turkey for all these decades, but now we all have to change because they don't like it anymore.

My own father pronounces our youngest son's name differently than we do.  It's a somewhat common biblical two-syllable name, but he uses a different vowel sound for the second syllable.  It's kind of irritating.  But Carrie and I decided that, out of respect for him, we'll just put up with it and not make a big deal out of it.  We all still pronounce it the 'right' way when we're together, and he still pronounces it the 'wrong' way, and life goes on just fine.  Kind of like Now-roo and Now-e-ro.

a bit disrespectful
a little disrespectful

If you somehow think it was more disrespectful
[/quote]

I don't think I ever said 'more' in any of my posts.  I agree that refusing to change what you call someone, after they've told you to change it, is disrespectful.  And I agree that telling them is less disrespectful than that.  That's why I used words phrases like 'a bit' and 'a little'.  More than zero.

[JayhawkCO]

The larger question is why you have (apparently) such an issue with just respecting someone's/some country's wishes when it requires incredibly little effort on your behalf.

[Big John]

I mean, NE2 can call me Mr. Phoger...

Abe Froman?

[GaryV]

Not sure I'd exactly call this something that bothers me. Maybe more amuses and perplexes.

Yesterday I saw a Tesla Cybertruck driving down the highway. It was pulling a flatbed trailer. On the trailer were two large round bales of hay. Just, What? Why?

[kphoger]

The larger question is why you have (apparently) such an issue with just respecting someone's/some country's wishes when it requires incredibly little effort on your behalf.

Honestly, I have little problem with my side of changing what I call a country, so long as I understand there's a legitimate reason for the place's name change.

Some reasons seem less legitimate than others:

As you've mentioned, prohibiting the translation of Côte d'Ivoire into any other language is kind of a stupid and arrogant reason, so I'll keep going with Ivory Coast.  Same basic thing for the first word of Cape/Cabo Verde.  With Cambodia/Kampuchea, they're pretty much just two different transliterations of the same thing, so people should feel free to use whichever one they want.  And if calling both the country and the bird 'turkey' for this long wasn't a problem, then I don't see why we should all have to say it the Turkish way now instead.  Swaziland is a mixed bag:  I understand wanting to shed a colonial relic of a name, but the reason I heard more often was that they didn't like people getting it confused with Switzerland, which I think is a dumb reason.

But I respect the whole Burma–Myanmar thing, as well as Congo–Zaïre.

[kphoger]

Not sure I'd exactly call this something that bothers me. Maybe more amuses and perplexes.

Yesterday I saw a Tesla Cybertruck driving down the highway. It was pulling a flatbed trailer. On the trailer were two large round bales of hay. Just, What? Why?

Would that have perplexed you less if it were a Ford F150 pulling the trailer instead?

[GaryV]

Not sure I'd exactly call this something that bothers me. Maybe more amuses and perplexes.

Yesterday I saw a Tesla Cybertruck driving down the highway. It was pulling a flatbed trailer. On the trailer were two large round bales of hay. Just, What? Why?

Would that have perplexed you less if it were a Ford F150 pulling the trailer instead?

Yes, because the Ford is a "real truck" - the Tesla just can't convince me.

[kphoger]

Would that have perplexed you less if it were a Ford F150 pulling the trailer instead?

Yes, because the Ford is a "real truck" - the Tesla just can't convince me.

I understand the sentiment.  I've only ever seen one Cybertruck on the road that was actually hauling cargo in the bed.  And it was noteworthy enough that I mentioned it to a few friends, and they were all as amazed as I was.

On the other hand, if someone has a big farm house with solar panels on the roof, then it would be a pretty sweet gig to just charge up your work truck at home every day.  With the financial pressure on farmers these days, I could see how eliminating part of one's work truck fuel expense would be an attractive proposition.

[JayhawkCO]

The larger question is why you have (apparently) such an issue with just respecting someone's/some country's wishes when it requires incredibly little effort on your behalf.

Honestly, I have little problem with my side of changing what I call a country, so long as I understand there's a legitimate reason for the place's name change.

So do you view Naoero's reason legitimate? (honest question not trying to 'gotcha')

[Max Rockatansky]

The saga and rescue of Cybertruck on the Rubicon Trail was something that I got more entertainment out of than I should have.  It is a vanity vehicle that doesn't have much utility or the capabilities of an overland truck.  It is hard to feel sympathetic when some goober from the Bay Area gets in over their head on an overlanding trail in the Sierra Nevada with one.

[JayhawkCO]

The saga and rescue of Cybertruck on the Rubicon Trail was something that I got more entertainment out of than I should have.  It is a vanity vehicle that doesn't have much utility or the capabilities of an overland truck.  It is hard to feel sympathetic when some goober from the Bay Area gets in over their head on an overlanding trail in the Sierra Nevada with one.

As Denver is a pretty affluent area, there are a fair amount of Cybertrucks driving around here. I feel like they're the tech bro version of truck nutz. Also, they're not trucks.

[Max Rockatansky]

The saga and rescue of Cybertruck on the Rubicon Trail was something that I got more entertainment out of than I should have.  It is a vanity vehicle that doesn't have much utility or the capabilities of an overland truck.  It is hard to feel sympathetic when some goober from the Bay Area gets in over their head on an overlanding trail in the Sierra Nevada with one.

As Denver is a pretty affluent area, there are a fair amount of Cybertrucks driving around here. I feel like they're the tech bro version of truck nutz. Also, they're not trucks.

I follow a lot of Telluride area overlanding groups.  They haven't been immune from the scourge of the Cybertruck. 

[kphoger]

So do you view Naoero's reason legitimate? (honest question not trying to 'gotcha')

I see it as no different than the Türkiye "change".  It's the same name, just de-anglicized—or, in the case of Nauru perhaps, de-germanicized.

[1995hoo]

I see a fair number (certainly not a lot) of Cybertrucks. Some of them have been painted a glossy black finish. While I don't really understand the appeal of the vehicle at all, I understand it even less in a black finish. I have a black car (and have had two others) and it's a pain to keep that color clean. I'd also tend to think that for a EV, black would be undesirable because it would put more load on the AC during hot weather. But I guess the people who want the sort of attention a Cybertruck draws don't think about that sort of issue.

This sort of thing:

[kphoger]

Some of them have been painted a glossy black finish.

Check this one out:

[1995hoo]

Have not seen anything like that. I'd be concerned about road salt and such if I had one of those around here, but of course that probably isn't an issue for that guy given what's in the background.

Then there's this. No idea whether it's real, though I have no reason to assume it's not.

[Max Rockatansky]

The Tesla owner base is really big on full exterior vinyl wraps in general.  It isn't uncommon to see similar wraps on the Model Y, 3 or even S.  There is black wrap Cybertruck near me that I see fairly regularly.

[elsmere241]

With Cambodia/Kampuchea, they're pretty much just two different transliterations of the same thing, so people should feel free to use whichever one they want.

My 6th grade world history book (published in I think 1981) said the "evil Communists" changed Camodbia's name to "Democratic Kampuchea" when they took over in 1975.  (I don't remember us getting very far past Ellis Island in class.  I just liked browsing my textbooks - and the encyclopedia.)

[kphoger]

For what it's worth...

I still call him 'John Cougar Mellencamp', even though the 1980s were a long time ago now.

Since 2000, I've called him 'the artist formerly and then once again known as Prince'.

[1995hoo]

For what it's worth...

I still call him 'John Cougar Mellencamp', even though the 1980s were a long time ago now.

Since 2000, I've called him 'the artist formerly and then once again known as Prince'.

I once saw Prince referred to as "TAFKAP." That prompted me to refer to a certain football team that, for a couple of years, was sometimes called the "WFT" as the "OFKAR" ("Organization Formerly Known as Redskins").

[JayhawkCO]

For what it's worth...

I still call him 'John Cougar Mellencamp', even though the 1980s were a long time ago now.

Since 2000, I've called him 'the artist formerly and then once again known as Prince'.

Do you introduce your wife by her maiden name? (Assuming she took your name when you got married.)

[kphoger]

Do you introduce your wife by her maiden name? (Assuming she took your name when you got married.)

Nope.  I must say, though, that it's sometimes easier to refer to a casual acquaintance by her maiden name than to try and remember her married name—assuming the person I'm talking to knew her before she got married, that is.

Also, it's an interesting phenomenon on Facebook—and I assume other social media platforms—that some ladies keep their maiden name in their profile, presumably because it's easier for people from their past to find them that way.  There's one friend from my past who has been happily married for years, with a family of six, but still has her maiden name in single quotation marks in her Facebook name (as if it's a nickname). 

[JayhawkCO]

Do you introduce your wife by her maiden name? (Assuming she took your name when you got married.)

Nope.  I must say, though, that it's sometimes easier to refer to a casual acquaintance by her maiden name than to try and remember her married name—assuming the person I'm talking to knew her before she got married, that is.

Also, it's an interesting phenomenon on Facebook—and I assume other social media platforms—that some ladies keep their maiden name in their profile, presumably because it's easier for people from their past to find them that way.  There's one friend from my past who has been happily married for years, with a family of six, but still has her maiden name in single quotation marks in her Facebook name (as if it's a nickname). 

My wife uses our last name on social media stuff, but when she went through the name change process, she added her maiden name, hyphenated to her middle name, e.g. Sarah-Jones.

[wxfree]

Since 2000, I've called him 'the artist formerly and then once again known as Prince'.

I saw, I think in a newspaper, the best name for him in that time: The artist formerly known as the artist formerly known as Prince.

[1995hoo]

Do you introduce your wife by her maiden name? (Assuming she took your name when you got married.)

Nope.  I must say, though, that it's sometimes easier to refer to a casual acquaintance by her maiden name than to try and remember her married name—assuming the person I'm talking to knew her before she got married, that is.

Also, it's an interesting phenomenon on Facebook—and I assume other social media platforms—that some ladies keep their maiden name in their profile, presumably because it's easier for people from their past to find them that way.  There's one friend from my past who has been happily married for years, with a family of six, but still has her maiden name in single quotation marks in her Facebook name (as if it's a nickname). 

I remember in 1991 when my parents, brother, and I were in Charlottesville the weekend I was moving into my dorm, we were walking somewhere and I heard a voice calling my mother's first name followed by a different last name. It took a second for me to register it was my mother's maiden name. My mom, in turn, did not realize that (she had used her maiden name solely as her middle name since my parents got married in the late 1960s) and did not react until I said, "Mom, that lady is calling you—she's using your maiden name." Turned out it was a college classmate of hers who hadn't seen her since they graduated, which was prior to when my parents got married, and thus didn't know her married name (her son was moving into his dorm). So that's certainly a situation where using a maiden name is entirely appropriate and to be expected.