Changing geographic names

[Nadja Adolf]

	From: Theresa Kishkan <tkishkan at UNISERVE.COM>

	So pleased, Lisa, to see such an articulate and passionate defense of
	freedom of expression. There are many mine-fields in contemporary
	culture (the one I find it difficult to accept is the PC term,
	"fishers".....{deleted}
	
I too expect to run into a mustelid instead of a human being when I hear that
someone is a fisher. B^)

	The problem I have with place name changes {deleted aside}
	is that so much of what is important about place is the layering of
	its histories -- the natural, human, mythic
	and geological histories.

	Names can be baggage, redolent of cultural prejudices, but they can
	also help us to know something deeply important about a place. Naming
	is in some ways an act of elimination but it is also an act of
	definition.

I agree; in addition, renaming discomfits me because it is a convenient way
to sanitize and Disneyfy history. There are things that were wrong and immoral
that should remain prominently in front of people. Sometimes these non-PC
names are useful for reminding us that not everything in the past was
"better" than current life.

nadja
(I speak as an ethnic and racial mix person.)