I was already aware that Arabs don’t like to refer to the Persian Gulf as the Persian Gulf. They prefer to call it the Arabian Gulf, although the rest of the world ignores their preference. Some lawmakers in New Jersey are representing South Korean interests and trying to get the state to refer to the Sea of Japan as the “East Sea.” If the bill is adopted, textbooks in the Garden State would have to reflect the change by 2016.
Maybe the answer here is not to refer to bodies of water as somehow belonging to any particular country or ethnicity. No one complains about the Atlantic, Pacific, Southern (Antarctic), or Arctic oceans, but I imagine some people might not like the designation of the Indian Ocean.
In any case, no one cares what New Jersey thinks about the Sea of Japan.
From what I can find out in my brief perusal, Sea of Japan is the only internationally recognized name for it. But I will look into the names further. Anyway, it’s East of Korea but West of Japan, so they could compromise with “West Sea”. Otherwise, they might as well just go ahead and argue for “Sea of Korea”. I hope this doesn’t mean NJ is going to become like TX re: textbooks, just when we’re on the verge of restoring sanity to state gov.
I was thinking of Texas too. Maybe they’d get on board for the East Sea if NJ adopts creationism, and together they could exert a lot of leverage. But I doubt they could declare the East China Sea to be the South Sea, because somebody already trademarked that.
I don’t love the way every time I’m screaming at people for saying “both sides do it” New Jersey comes up with a case where Democrats make it true.
I for one, welcome the day when Jersey politicians are absent from my news feed.
I’d like to go back to mocking the politicians from Texas again.
I’m surprised that Texans abide “Gulf of Mexico” in their textbooks.
I figured maybe Gulf of Freedom would do for them. Or maybe Gulf of Real America.
It was named that way in the beginning by God himself; it’s in the appendix of Genesis. Why He would choose such a sucky name is mystifying, but as all Texans know, God works in mysterious ways. Changing the names of things from the name God gave them would be a sacrilege, so I’m sure Governor Perry will soon threaten Governor Christie that if they mess with the Sea of Japan’s name, Texas will secede, not wanting to be in the country as a state that would mess with divine names.
New Jersey should legislate pi while they’re at it. New Jersey students would have much higher math scores if pi were 3 instead of 3.14159… And without wasting any slush-fund money on tax payers to boot! The Christie can run for President as the next “education President”; he’d be as good as the last one.
Well, we certainly know that Texans have no use for pi. It was conjured up by some dark skinned Babylonian about 2000 years after god created everything. If it was important, then god would have put it in his book.
Although pi, being an irrational number, could certainly be viewed, then, as being very applicable to almost anything Texan.
It’s a thought, but actually NJ is fine with pi and with science. In fact Corzine started to make NJ the education state (and of course we have Rush Holt as one of our reps, genuwine rocket scientist and Princeton Prof; and Christie hasn’t yet succeeded in destroying the NJ public school system, of which our own Booman’s school is the top example), but I was thinking more it’s an area for Menendez and his retrograde foreign policy to get involved. In fact, re: the Norwegian Sea looks like a more international name would be the East Greenland Sea – Menendez should work on that.
btw I was sitting next a Danish guy in German class when we learned that the Great Dane was the Deutsche Dogge. A little discussion ensued but it remains Deutsche Dogge for Germans
Surely “Gulf of Texas”
I was thinking Gulf of Cuba, (more tasks with with Menendez can fill his time)
I’m surprised that Texans abide non-Biblical numerals in their arithmetic classes. Allowing Hindu-Arabic numerals to infect the minds of their little darlings.
No way we’re giving up the Norwegian Sea 😉
You, couldn’t be more wrong in your assertions about what one calls the Sea of Japan.
When the state of Virginia recently passed a law along the same lines as the one proposed in New Jersey it was a major news story not only in Japan but South Korea as well.
There’s a very simple solution to avoiding nationalist conflicts in geographic names, and the government of New Jersey is perfectly suited to become a trailblazer in this regard:
Sell the naming rights!
Why “Sea of Japan” when “Sea of Mitsubishi” or “Hyundai Sea” are available? The “Amazon.com Rainforest” is obvious, of course. What could be better than beer from the freshest springs in the Coors Mountains? And surely BP could score a PR coup by purchasing naming rights to the quaintly named Gulf of Mexico, since so much of its water is mixed with BP’s oil anyway.
With literally hundreds of thousands of geographic names, and a similar number of local and national governments that can name any and all of them, the opportunities for sponsorship are endless. And I’m sure the government of New Jersey can be trusted for an open, fair bidding process that benefits every citizen of the state, from the Comcast River to the Trump Ocean.
Wonderful idea! so many possibilities. But why stop at Trump Ocean, how about New Trumpia?
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