Stupid little things that bug you

Blue Mist said:
Before you get all het up think history. It wasn't pissed up aristocrats or politicians but merchant's, sailors and explorers. A white man lands in China and is told by a local the town in called Bejing. Bearing in mind ol' whitey doesn't speak Cantonese, by the time he's told the ships captain who takes 6 months to sail home before he can tell someone where he got all the silk from, by then in his memory its Peking.
The same happened with Mumbai.
Click to expand...
i'm not falling for the chinese whispers theory, it doesn't hold water.

the merchants and explorers you speak of were highly intelligent and literate people who not only made maps and charts but also kept diaries.
they would have been meticulous and constantly correcting any previous mistakes.
they didn't just pass on a place-name to the ship's captain who then forgot how to pronounce it over time.

and anyway, what about all the name changes of our european neighbours? it didn't take months to sail back from Deutchsland and misremember it somehow as Germany.

also, if, as you suggest, it was based on pronunciation then why don't we spell Paris as Parree?

no, i'm not having that, not at all.
there's a lot more to this than meets the eye...

some tossers did this on purpose one evening and i want to know who they were and i want to know what their reasons were.
 
frocksmocks 2smokinberyls said:
i'm not falling for the chinese whispers theory, it doesn't hold water.

the merchants and explorers you speak of were highly intelligent and literate people who not only made maps and charts but also kept diaries.
they would have been meticulous and constantly correcting any previous mistakes.
they didn't just pass on a place-name to the ship's captain who then forgot how to pronounce it over time.

and anyway, what about all the name changes of our european neighbours? it didn't take months to sail back from Deutchsland and misremember it somehow as Germany.

also, if, as you suggest, it was based on pronunciation then why don't we spell Paris as Parree?

no, i'm not having that, not at all.
there's a lot more to this than meets the eye...

some tossers did this on purpose one evening and i want to know who they were and i want to know what their reasons were.
Click to expand...
Yep fair do's you've caught me out. It was actually 7.39pm Wednesday, 18th of February 1862.
 
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