Oliver is Lir II (Re: [Wikipedia-l] This whole Lir and Americanization thing)

Mon Nov 25 14:38:16 UTC 2002

Anthere wrote:
> Say...some 20 years ago, we were told not to say (and
> write) Pékin any more but to replace it with Beijing
> (same with Mao Zédong, Jiang Jieshi, Changzhou...).
> 
> These changes were strongly enforced in France, maybe
> because we were under a socialist/communist
> government. It seems we are slowly drifting again
> toward Pékin :-)

Here in the U.S., Beijing became standard some years ago, and Peking
is never heard.  But, as there is no central authority on such things
at all, I'm not sure how this happened.  Perhaps by mutual agreement
by the news networks, or perhaps by virtue of some standard reference
work that news anchors all use.

> And maybe an encyclopedia is JUST the perfect place to
> acquire that kind of knowledge. Especially in cases
> such as these ones where there is also a nice
> historical point to develop.

It is true that the encyclopedia is a great place to learn about these
things.  But I think that the general consensus is that it is not our
role to be activists in pushing changes for obscure terms.

--Jimbo