🚀 go-pugleaf

groups1@cavendish.demon.co.uk (Chris Ryall) wrote in message news:<8eec2d9f.0312190131.70657d2f@posting.google.com>...
> >>> Why can't you write 'Bombay' like a human being, instead of the -
> >>> to a non-native of India - preposterous affectation of 'Mumbai'?
>  
> >> For the same reason we write Beijing.
> > 
> > Who, pray, is the 'we' here?
> 
> Count me in please! AFAIR the Chinese government *asked* the world to
> use the Beijing transliteration in the 70's, as Pekin/Peking did not
> reflect the local pronounciation.

So we should pronounce 'New York' 'New Yoick'? 

<SNIP> 

> The name Mumbai has
> been used in the main local languages for as long, and is ascribed to
> the local goddess, Mumba (ai means mother in Marathi). The name of the
> city was changed to Mumbai by an act of the parliament in 1997. - 
> http://theory.tifr.res.in/bombay/

I do not consider myself bound by the edicts of the Indian Parliament.


> 
> Interesting filename, huh!   Lonely Planet do better ...
> http://www.lonelyplanet.com/destinations/indian_subcontinent/mumbai/ 
> 
> Or does the university convince?  http://www.mu.ac.in/
> 
> Clearly things are still in flux.  Personally I will retain the old
> epithets in cooking - Pekin Duck, Bombay Duck etc.  And what has this
> to do with the EBU?  "Aylesbury Duck" of course. Shame the thread is
> about the white book, rather than the orange. :)) Chris Ryall

I think we are supposed to consider Aylesbury the bridge equivalent of the Vatican.