4 ms·
Why is "turkey" lowercased? For that matter the country's official name is Türkiye as of 2022.
by triceratops 5mo ago
Why is "turkey" lowercased? For that matter the country's official name is Türkiye as of 2022.
- randomtoast 5mo agoLet's talk turkey, does it really matter?
- triceratops 5mo agoDoes anything matter? If there are things that matter, grammar is one of those things.
- gacgacgac 5mo agoYes? The country is named Türkiye, we should use that name? The etymology here is interesting and has a looooong history. The country has officially been named Türkiye for over a century.
- jnwatson 5mo agoAnd Germany's official name is "Bundesrepublik Deutschland". I get to call it Germany though.
- triceratops 5mo agoBut not germany.
- marky1991 5mo agoThis sort of language policing is pointless.
- triceratops 5mo agoI mean it matters here. "turkey" and "Turkey" legitimately have different meanings.
- marky1991 5mo agoSo does 'mark' and 'Mark', that doesn't mean I correct everyone (or myself) every time they/I type my name without using a capital letter.
- triceratops 5mo agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48388057 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48388057
- BigGreenJorts 5mo agoOk but are there Wired articles about you?
- gacgacgac 5mo agoHas Germany said they should be called Deutschland by English speakers?
- IncreasePosts 5mo agoIs it a right of any nation to assert what other nations call it? Can America ask China to stop calling them 美国 (Měiguó) and call them the USA? The problem with the turkey rebranding is that it was a mere orthographic update, but it is using orthography that is very non standard(whatever that means for English), including using a diacritic rarely seen in English. I could get behind it more if they completely changed the name, like a when Swaziland switched to eswatini. But for now, you can pry turkey from my cold dead hands
- triceratops 5mo ago> But for now, you can pry turkey from my cold dead hands Big fan of Thanksgiving foods I see. (Do you see the real problem? Lowercasing a proper noun that has another meaning when lowercased. Turkey/Türkiye is just the cherry on top)
- patates 5mo agoIf you need an example, look at the Peking->Beijing transition.
- suddenlybananas 5mo agohttps://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pekin https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pekin Turkish still uses the old term. Why should I change my language to suit them if they won't do it for others.
- olalonde 5mo agoGermany's official English name is Germany[0]. [0] https://unterm.un.org/unterm2/en/view/745bbc2a-fc50-4b94-bb96-2ff7ed380081 https://unterm.un.org/unterm2/en/view/745bbc2a-fc50-4b94-bb9...
- tracerbulletx 5mo agoWords come from the people who use them. The name for a place is in the context of the language and culture that is using the word to reference it.
- suddenlybananas 5mo agoI will call them Turkiye when they call Greece Hellas, Germany Deutschland and China Zhongguo in Turkish.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- gacgacgac 5mo agoHave those countries made those requests?
- suddenlybananas 5mo agoYou and I both know that Turkey would never do such a thing.
- triceratops 5mo agoRegular Turkish people may not. The Turkish government, in official diplomatic communications, most certainly would if those countries requested it. I don't think we are required to start calling it Turkey in the vernacular. Regular Turkish people don't have to change their names for countries in their language either. I only pointed out Turkey/Türkiye in my original post to head off smart-asses. Using proper casing for the name is much more important.
- suddenlybananas 5mo agohttps://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pekin https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pekin Turkish doesn't seem to respect the wishes of the Chinese government with regard to Beijing.
- Lio 5mo agoYes, casing matters. It carries meaning. It's the difference between helping your Uncle Jack off a horse and helping your uncle jack off a horse. This headline makes it sound like the IT systems of a cosmetic surgeon have been attacked by poultry.
- burnt-resistor 5mo agoExactly. "Earth" means the planet we live on and "earth" means soil. The disrespect of the meaning conveyed by not using the correct case is noxious and sloppy.
- tedggh 5mo agoYou guys are being too case sensitive.
- gweinberg 5mo agoYes! I originally read the headline as "a turkey" because of the lack of a capital T. They can call themselves what they want, but it unreasonable of the Turks to expect English speakers to write their country's name with characters which are not part of our alphabet.
- triceratops 5mo agoYeah I'm not gonna type out the u with an umlaut (?) myself on an message board. If I were writing to the UN or to the Turkish embassy I'd copy-paste it. But lowercasing a proper noun is egregious.
- complianceowll 5mo agoAs an expression of my free will and freedom of speech, I am going to call it Gobble Gobble.
- gadders 5mo agoTurkiye is the endonym, not the exonym.
- gruntled-worker 5mo agoNot anymore really, at least according to their preference. At a minimum, a capital T will prevent comedic errors like a head full of feathers. https://www.npr.org/2023/01/08/1147704945/the-state-department-will-begin-spelling-turkey-as-turkiye https://www.npr.org/2023/01/08/1147704945/the-state-departme...
- gadders 5mo agoI agree on the capital T. It's still Turkey to me.
- triceratops 5mo agoSure, but "turkey" is a bird, not a country. You at least have to write "Turkey" to be clear to English speakers. If you like, save Türkiye for your visits to the UN.
- gadders 5mo agoI agree on a capital T. Country names are proper nouns and should always be capitalised.
- throwawayk7h 5mo agoGermany's official name is Bundesrepublik Deutschland
- triceratops 5mo agoAnd yet you write "Germany", not "germany".
- swores 5mo agoWell, you don't know if they do, or if they were just capitalising the start of their sentence while not feeing that the word needs a capital letter in and of itself. (But yeah, personally I would capitalised both counties regardless of spelling/which name used.)
- SideburnsOfDoom 5mo agoGermany's official name in English is "Federal Republic of Germany". (And in French the official name is "La République fédérale d'Allemagne"). Another country's official name in English is "Republic of Türkiye". Since 2022. In both cases, that is what officials from the country expect the country to be called, when using the English language. For instance here https://www.un.org/en/about-us/member-states/germany https://www.un.org/en/about-us/member-states/germany https://www.un.org/en/about-us/member-states/turkiye https://www.un.org/en/about-us/member-states/turkiye
- inglor_cz 5mo agoI won't be calling Turkey Türkiye anymore than I would call China Zhōngguó. They don't have any authority to manage other people's languages. The lack of capitalization is an obvious error, though. Before clicking, I wondered if some accidental discovery in turkeys (as birds) resulted in better human hair growth.
- triceratops 5mo ago> I won't be calling Turkey Türkiye anymore than I would call China Zhōngguó. And that's fine. I mentioned Türkiye because at least one smart-ass would correct me otherwise. But "turkey" is a bird. For it to be a country it's at least gotta be "Turkey".
- inglor_cz 5mo agoFully agree.
- SideburnsOfDoom 5mo ago> I won't be calling Turkey Türkiye anymore than I would call China Zhōngguó. Whyever not? It's their stated preference. And it's hardly the same kind of change as "China" vs. "Zhōngguó" or "Germany" vs. "Deutschland". It's just a slightly different spelling and pronunciation of the same word. You can change your ways.
- stasomatic 5mo agoHold on, I’m confused for real. If not for the country, is this just a cosmic linguistic coincidence? J/k but only sorta. Any country should have the respect to have their names spelled out as they prefer, the PITA is the keyboards. I speak for myself, but when I type Turkey I mean the country with no subliminal diss.