🚀 go-pugleaf

From article <7418.3248.uupcb@factory.com>, by michael.polymenakos@factory.com (Michael Polymenakos):
> 
> Quoting AT FEAR:
>>in mind that Slavic Macedonia won't do as a name for the Republic of
>>Macedonia as not all its population is Slavic.  The comments posted
> 
>  My point exactly. The name "Macedonia" won't do as a name for Vardar as
> not all its population is "Macedonian". Albanians alone account for
> about 40% of the population.

This doesn't follow.  it's the racial tag that won't do.  The neutral
geographic term seems perfect, much better than calling the country
after a river which is rather like calling my country the Thames.  I
believe the present government in Macedonia contains Albanians so the
Albanian opposition to the name Macedonia seems to be not as great as
Greek posters would have us believe.  Isn't there a problem with the
general argument here, if slav speakers in Greece can have Greek
consciousness, i.e.  be slavic Greeks, why can't there be Albanians with
Macedonian consciousness in the Republic of Macedonia?

>> no one is suggesting that graecomacedonians should stop
>>calling themselves Macedonians in stark contrast to the shrill Greek
>>attempt to appropriate this name for their own exclusive use.
> 
>  How did you come up with this horrible concoction
> "Graecomacedonians"? Take a name that is never used in the Greek
> language, use the latin spelling of it, prefix it to "Macedonians" as if
> the Macedonian people (the Real Macedonian People) asked for your
> opinion. Do something better with your time.

I dare say that the Macedonians of the Republic of Macedonia didn't ask
to be call 'SlavoMacedonians', Vardaris (Thamesians!) or Skopjeans
(Londoners!).  What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. 
Graeco- has to be the right spelling of this prefix.  Graecomacedonian
seems as good a way as any of marking out one particular group who have
a claim to be called Macedonians.  A group that, by the way, are no more
or less authentically Macedonian than those Macedonians who live to
their North, though they are the only group it seems who want to secure
an unjustified monopoly on the name. 
                                                        

Andy