Minor things that bother you

[kphoger]

Basically if the country doesn't request it from the international community, I wouldn't use it.

And, see, for me, I just don't really care if "the country" requests it or not.  They (whoever "they" are) can just let other languages say the name of their country however they historically have, and they can get over themselves if they don't like it.  I certainly don't care if some other language pronounces or spells "America" differently, and I certainly wouldn't expect them to change their dictionaries just because the U.S. congress requested them to.  The natives of Suomi can keep calling us "Amerikka" whether our government wants them too or not, and I'll keep calling them "Finland" whether their government wants us to stop or not.

[kkt]

They may be tagless in the neck, but at the waistline there's a redonkulous scratchy label providing washing instructions in 17 languages.

I wish they were in 17 languages, rather than just a bunch of unintuitive geometric shapes.

Yes.  Then one day, thousands of years from now, an archeologist could find one and it would be the new Rosetta Stone.

[Scott5114]

They may be tagless in the neck, but at the waistline there's a redonkulous scratchy label providing washing instructions in 17 languages.

I wish they were in 17 languages, rather than just a bunch of unintuitive geometric shapes.

Yes.  Then one day, thousands of years from now, an archeologist could find one and it would be the new Rosetta Stone.

Although its meaning has been lost to time, one phrase which frequently appears in the common literature of the Late American Period was "Machine wash warm with like colors". While the meaning of this phrase is lost to time, it was obviously very significant to the Late Americans, as evidenced by the fact they frequently inscribed it on textiles in places that would have been in direct contact with the skin at all times. Interestingly, such inscriptions were seldom found in places where they would be readable by the wearer. It is thus possible the phrase had some sort of ritual significance, perhaps as a good luck charm, or religious in nature.

[SSOWorld]

Looks like Nauru wants to now be known as Naoero.

This is getting silly.  Pretty soon they'll expect us to swap out the z for an s in Brazil, and stick a t at the beginning of Chad, and hock up a loogie instead of saying Hungary.

As long as it lacks diacritics, I'm generally okay with calling it whatever the locals call it (assuming no English translation a la Ivory Coast).

is it Budapest or Budapescht?

side note - Budapest is generally divided into 2 super districts.
Buda, and Pest

[1995hoo]

is it Budapest or Budapescht?

side note - Budapest is generally divided into 2 super districts.
Buda, and Pest

If you're trying to pronounce it the Hungarian way, the latter pronunciation is closer to authentic. My wife is of Hungarian descent (both of her parents were Hungarian) and she spoke that language exclusively until she started school.

[kphoger]

Although its meaning has been lost to time, one phrase which frequently appears in the common literature of the Late American Period was "Machine wash warm with like colors". While the meaning of this phrase is lost to time, it was obviously very significant to the Late Americans, as evidenced by the fact they frequently inscribed it on textiles in places that would have been in direct contact with the skin at all times. Interestingly, such inscriptions were seldom found in places where they would be readable by the wearer. It is thus possible the phrase had some sort of ritual significance, perhaps as a good luck charm, or religious in nature.

Have you ever read this?

Body Ritual among the Nacirema [H. Miner, 1956] (.pdf)