Re: [HCDX] Colombia or Columbia??

["T. Bankson Roach" <sigint@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Sorry, this is apparently further proof of declining USA educational
standards . If you think this is bad, see if you can handle 30 minutes
of the smiling oafs and idiots who do local, or national, TV news in the
USA. Whoops, it's not "news" any more. It's "infotainment". Supposedly
in a recent test, half of the American's quizzed could not identify
which country was located directly to the south of Texas [hint - it
starts with an "M"]. In spite of all this, we get richer and richer. If
Ed Murrow were alive today he would vomit if when he saw what liberals
have done to American education. Even the BBC seemed driven to reduce
the quality of broadcasting to appeal to the burgeoning masses. At one
time in the USA people felt shame at not being able to spell correctly
or write coherently. A day spent reading posts on any forum on the
Internet will make you cringe. Foreigners who write using English as a
second, or even  third language, do far better than most native born
citizens of the USA. In the USA, many of us are trying, mostly in vain,
to return to higher standards. I saw Colombia called Columbia in a major
newspaper the other day! Shame.

Most word processing programs have spelling checkers, but ignorance of
the sort that results in the country Columbia being called Colombia will
not be remedied by an uneducated person who hasn't a clue as to the
difference. Typographical errors are "excusable", but ignorance at this
level should result in a comment just like yours. Blindly accepting such
writing merely causes it to increase. I cringe whenever I make a
spelling or grammatical error. It makes me try harder to write better.
It is something you should strive to do daily! The typical haste of
making an email reply only serves to make a bad situation worse. Not
commenting on such egregious errors only perpetuates them. Ignorance
should never be lauded or accepted, especially in a major document like
WRTH! Thanks for pointing out this latest monument to rotten education.
Maybe it will make us try even harder to remedy the problem. Seriously,
I appreciate feedback on my all too numerous errors. It will either
educate me or cause me to try harder. Both are laudable goals. Sometimes
the best "brain food" is crow!

Tom Roach


----- Original Message -----
From: Per-Ole Stenman <per-ole.stenman@xxxxxxxx>
To: <hcdx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, August 07, 2000 07:07 AM
Subject: [HCDX] Colombia or Columbia??


> For the first time I saw WRTH-2000 ( I have not bought any this year
of my
> own).
>
> I noticed that Colombia now is written as "Columbia" and wonder why
noone
> has commented on this one, since many of us seems to be next to
perfect as
> comes to the language and the origin of words.
>
> I learn long time ago from a Colombian author (who won the Nobel
prize)
> that the best way to start to honor his country was to write it
correctly,
> and that it is really Colombia (from indian Colo..) and not Columbia
(from
> Kolumbus).
>
> After that occasion I have thought that Colombia is the only way to
write
> the name of this country, but maybe I'm wrong since so many people
really
> uses Columbia (and Kolumbia in languages where C is not used).
>
> 73s
> Per-Ole Stenman, Jakobstad, Finland




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