On 5/22/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote:
Sounds like the kind of chauvinistic demands that the
Greeks put on
Macedonia.
Similar only in that it involves two places using the same name, and
some degree of nationalistic pride no doubt.
However, the Wikipedia Georgia vs. Georgia squabble differs quite
substantially from the Macedonia vs. Macedonia one. For one thing,
I've never heard anyone claim that either should not be named Georgia.
They did not arrive at their names through a common source, either;
the state after a British king, while the nation and former SSR seems
to have acquired the name through a mangling of a Greek name for part
of its territory into English, according to the Wikipedia article.
Another factor seems to be that few taking sides or weighing in on
this, in all the half-dozen at least times that I've seen this
argument come up, are actually residents of either geographical
entity. I am not a Georgian in either sense, being a British citizen
living in the United States, and I don't think many of the others
who've ever argued about this have been either.
It's in the end a disagreement about the natural ordering of things in
an encyclopedia context, and does not involve national pride for many
participants - although it's arguable that regional bias or simply an
wherever-centric point of view are in play as well.
-Matt