this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2025
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As of revision version #85, OpenStreetMap has the following tags for Golfo de México:

  • name:en Gulf of Mexico
  • official_name:en-US Gulf of America
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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

I'm going to be looking for ways to make the name even more Mexican now. Maybe just perfect my Spanish at least for that one phrase. Gwalfo de Meh-hee-co

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 hours ago (2 children)

Why is this even being discussed?

Are they discussing renaming Taiwan to China as well?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

One way a global index can respect local authority would be for the index to acknowledge that within that territory, there is an official name for things.

They can also be pragmatic and acknowledge a common local name, the global consensus name, etc.

In many ways, it's just a further fragmentation like language.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago

Are you taking about Formosa or the Republic of China?

[–] [email protected] 32 points 9 hours ago (5 children)

Hey. Your all blinded by this nothing and elon is getting contracts of money he dismantled from government. Congrats americans. Hope another cou try can put us in our place.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 hours ago (2 children)

Current U.S. leadership: Our billionaires are gonna be bigger than all the other billionaires in the world put together. (I honestly believe there's an insecurity motive there: if US billionaires don't amass significantly more wealth, they won't be competitive in the billionaire world against outside billionaires.)

U.S. Democracy: If one dollar = one vote, I guess we should save all that money we have been wasting on elections.

The real reason for the surge in prosperity of the middle and lower classes after WWII: decimation of the ultra-wealthy throughout the developed world. Remember: the post WWII US income tax on the wealthy was 91% - literal decimation, for those who paid.

https://www.wolterskluwer.com/en/expert-insights/whole-ball-of-tax-historical-income-tax-rates

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 minutes ago

(I honestly believe there's an insecurity motive there

Once you have more money than you could reasonably spend in a lifetime, it just becomes another penis measuring contest for insecure manchildren.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 56 minutes ago

They also returned from the war to a much stronger welfare system.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 hours ago

thank you, enlightened one… we are all forgetting every other crazy thing they’re doing and focusing exclusively on map apps….
we’re all so blind, thank you for helping us see!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago

What specifically do you think that OSM maintainers should be doing to stop this instead of maintaining OSM?

Also coup has a p.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 hours ago

no doubt it's all been squirrelled away into crypto. They'll have fun trying to hold the guy accountable. Oh wait, no, accountability is for the poors.
Anyway, enjoy the sound of the keys jingling, folks

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 hours ago

It's possible to know about this while also knowing that extreme fuckery is occurring. But its not like your average Lemmy user can do anything to stop either.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

For the next four years I also propose renaming en_us to an-us.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 hours ago
[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago
[–] [email protected] 78 points 19 hours ago (3 children)

As I explained to Google (from Dan McClellan) _references do not assert from fiat what things are called. A dictionary definition is not an official definition but what a word means or what a thing is called at the moment.

Most of the world calls it the Golfo de México or in English speaking regions, the Gulf of Mexico. Changing all the maps of the world won't change this.

Now granted, a state chooses what to call itself (such as the changing of The Ukraine to simply Ukraine but that is the incorporated entity that is the sovereign nation of Ukraine.

As the US does not have sovereign control of the Gulf of Mexico, it doesn't get to declare the name of a region of international waters.

This whole thing just makes the GOP, MAGA, the Trump administration and by proxy the people of the United States xenophobic and barbaric as hell. It's not a good look.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago

Its just a distraction meant to throw people off the smell of the real crimes they are committing. Call it the gulf of dogshit i dont care

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

it was never “the ukraine”, russia just called it that because the ukraine was a region to them… like the great plains is to america…

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Russian doesn't even have definite articles, to them it was always just Ukraine.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 24 minutes ago* (last edited 19 minutes ago)

Judging from this very polemic article by linguistic anthropologist Kathryn E. Graber, the argument is that a linguistic distinction that exists in Russian (and Ukrainian) is mirrorred in other languages using the definite article. 'Na Ukraine' on the one hand literally means 'on Ukraine', 'v Ukraine' on the other 'in Ukraine'. Graber goes on to say that 'In Russian, a person is “na” an unbounded territory, such as a hill, but “v” a bounded territory that is defined politically or institutionally, such as a nation-state.' She would then probably also argue that the same, in English, goes for names like 'the Congo', being named after a river. The claim that this is a Soviet-era practice (if what she means by that is that it arose during the Soviet Union), is simply not true, though. In Google Books you can find plenty of titles with 'the Ukraine' from before 1900. The earliest mention I found in English (though I didn't look very well) was from 1672.

It anyway strikes me as very performative. You can well argue that language influences the way we view the world (though, I think the way we view the world influences the language we use much more). Even so, there are obviously much bigger (concrete) threats to Ukrainian sovereignty than (to Ukrainians) foreigners using a definite article or not. Thus, it becomes less a matter of protecting sovereignty, and more a matter of simple respect to Ukrainian sensibilities. Ukrainians may take offence at you using the definite article, and you may want to prevent that by not saying 'the Ukraine'.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

As an American, I will refuse to call it fuckass gulf of america.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago

I dunno. That could be kinda snappy on a map. "Ok, let's see, here we have the North Atlantic, the Sargasso Sea, and the Fuckass Gulf of America."

[–] [email protected] 6 points 18 hours ago (4 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 hours ago

I got your Donnie Darko reference.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 hours ago

It's just slang. I searched it on Startpage and it gives the definition : "used alone or as a noun or verb in various phrases to express annoyance, contempt, or impatience" which sounds right to me. I'd link it but I can't find where it sourced the definition.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Coming from lemmynsfw I would have figured you might know? Let me know if you learn anything in your research

[–] [email protected] 6 points 12 hours ago (3 children)

It's a Donnie Darko reference. I'm surprised anyone cares who comes from what instance.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 hours ago

Nah, I don't care who comes from what instance but when it comes to anal references, I figured I'd make a bad joke, haha

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 hours ago

I'm voting for Dukakis

[–] [email protected] -3 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Reference comments should stay on reddit.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 33 minutes ago

Only if they detract from a discussion of substance.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Search for 'anal' in your Lemmy instance

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Since Trump is slang for fart in UK, I propose it be re-renamed to Guff of America in his honour. I bet he wouldn't even notice.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 hours ago

Apparently the family name moving to America was "Trumpf", so that fits well given its a fart with a little trailing 'pfff', likely caused from the subtle loosening of a well used asshole.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 19 hours ago (4 children)

Honestly, I think that we the people need to assert our own right to name things more often. I don't recall the latest name of the Brewers stadium in Milwaukee, for example. Whatever company that paid to have them put its name on the front didn't pay me. It's "the new County Stadium" as far as I'm concerned.

(I have no philosophical objection to the name, by the way. Reps of the new company can DM me, we can work out a deal.)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

There's a county cricket ground near me that was named the Hampshire Rose Bowl when it was first opened 25 years ago. In that time it has been renamed a number of times in honour of a selection of insurance companies I'd never heard of before, but to pretty much everyone in the area it's the Rose Bowl.

So yeah.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 15 hours ago

Ask any illinoisan what the tallest tower in Chicago is and you won't hear the name that's on the building. And good for them

[–] [email protected] 16 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

An acquaintance helped close a deal for a stadium naming rights. It had been a multi year process, the negotiations were crazy, the company deliberated forever trying to decide if this was the best way to increase brand recognition and man that shits expensive.

So like a shit head that thinks he’s funny I started calling the stadium by its sponsor like 3 sponsors ago when I was around them. You could see the anxiety spike when I did it.

Your comment made me think of that. It’s hilarious. They would have had a fucking breakdown if they had heard someone say that out loud.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 18 hours ago

Frankly I agree. From my personal experience, every single native Chicagoan has been calling that particular building "Sears Tower". Even though the name has been officially changed for more than 15 years by this point...

And I thin OSM actually handled this quite well! The original Sears Tower name is still available as an "alt_name" tag on OSM as well, I just double-checked and yep it's still searchable on the map

[–] [email protected] 29 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

How is it the "official name" even for en-US? Trump isn't the be all and end all of naming things. Every single rational, thinking person in the USA, and many, many people who aren't so rational (Trump voters), still call it the Gulf of Mexico and always will. Official, my ass.

The early proposal of alt-name: en-US=Gulf of America seemed the most logical.

Holy hell, I hate this cursed timeline.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

Because the United States Board on Geographic Names now says so, as demanded by Trump by Order No. 3423. They are the government body that defines what places are officially called.

But unless you are a US federal employee, as Nick Fury once said, "I recognize the council has made a decision, but given that it's a stupid-ass decision, I've elected to ignore it."

[–] [email protected] 7 points 18 hours ago

To reiterate, GNIS and GNS are only relevant to an appropriately qualified official_name tag, not a name tag, because of the on the ground rule. For this kind of feature, common sense would place a lot of weight on overall common usage, since sending someone to survey the facts “on the ground” would be… difficult.

Yeah that certainly seems difficult

[–] [email protected] 126 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Literally no one ever called it "Gulf of America" until January. I appreciate the generally thoughtful conversation on OSM, but there's no reason that declaration should be taken seriously.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The maintainers were doing a good job reverting contributions for a while. Here's a good example: https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/gulf-of-america-gulf-of-mexico/124571/16

They follow names assigned by https://unstats.un.org/unsd/ungegn/, and use the labels like en_US for official single-country names. While I would much prefer it remain an alt_name, I understand their rational. Ugh.

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[–] [email protected] 223 points 1 day ago (12 children)

As an american. I want the option to display it as Gulf of Mexico. Like it's always been before that fat sack of shit was trying to win points wit hracists to distract them from the hand reaching up their ass to fuck them.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 day ago (1 children)

They could add a snowflake option that when activated makes it display as Gulf of America.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 19 hours ago

A checkbox labelled "Triggered" on the phone.

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