The Digital Advantage

It wasn't my intention to be rude and uncaring, but I was considering having a Bombay martini with my Peking Duck when the looks of silent horror stopped me. I was being chastised, judged, and found to be living in the past.

Neither Peking nor Bombay exist any more, and only inconsiderate, insensitive Luddites such as myself call them that any more. I'm not sure, but I get the feeling that how we refer to things is now the only litmus test we're judged by.

It may simply be familiarity, but Peking duck just sounds better to me than Beijing duck. I don't know much about it, but I think the name change had something to do with early visitors using the wrong alphabet or something. The confusion of B with P is sort-of understandable since I've heard there's still much controversy in the Philipino community over Filipino or Pilipino, and I'm taking that as a sign that Asian languages have as much trouble with P as they do with L and R.

The Mumbai thing, I'm guessing, is more about shucking off the oppressive names of Imperialism than anything else, but I have to admit it wasn't until the last week or so that I realized the name had been changed. I'd look forward to catchy songs about these name changes, but I'm sure to be disappointed.

With all these name changes going on, especially in Africa, and borders now no more settled and accepted than the authorship of the plays credited to William Shakespeare, I think the time of paper maps and atlases have passed. Maybe we should just stick with easily modified electronic maps. And maybe I could get Winston Smith's job of changing all the old references to be politically correct.