Posted on 11/19/2002 11:52:23 AM PST by ewing
Eskimos have dozens of words for snow. Shouldn't we use all of them instead of our less respectful Germanic word when we're in Alaska?
If we use the prefix aqua instead of hydro aren't we discriminating against Greek people? Shouldn't we stick to our Germanic 'water'? Africans are what the Romans named the people living there. When we call people Africans or African Americans we are disrespecting them by this convoluted logic.
Some foreign words are extremely hard to pronounce if you didn't grow up speaking the tongue- note the French problem with the letter "H", the Japanese have trouble with some letters in English. It would be awfully pompous of me to insist that the Japanese use an American term for something when they are speaking in their own language- particularly if the word has a phoneme that doesn't even exist in their own language.
Other cultures have their ways of naming things- Western culture has its ways. In English we tend to name mountains in honor of a person instead of stringing together syllables which describe a physical attribute. In other words- every mountain is a mountain but it will be accompanied by the person honored. This isn't an across the board rule and people shouldn't get worked up about it. Forests and Rivers we tend to use native names or descriptive names as well as Person Honoring names. We're not sitting there thinking- "How can we best sh!t on the native culture while elevating our own- I know! Let's call it Mt McKinley!"
This is silly to the absurd. I'm pretty sure I've read that Everest has many different names depending upon which people you're talking to. The Chinese call it what they will. The Indians call it what they do, as do the Sherpas. We call it Everest.
What I do disagree with is giving Hillary sole credit for being the first man to summit this mountain. By his own account he and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay summited side by side. Who was the first man to summit? Two men summited together. Who was the first Westerner? Hillary. Imagine if a Sherpa had accompanied Armstrong to the moon, got out of the capsule, set up cameras and what not and then Neil jumps out and says "One small step for..." Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmond Hillary both did what nobody had ever done before- Sherpa or Westerner. They helped each other, relied on each other, probably would not have made it without each other. By their own words they summited together. They should get equal credit.
Yes....when you stand on the summit, you are on the dividing line.
If you come from the more common Southern Route pioneered by Hillary and Tenzing (jokingly called the Yak Route because it's "easiest") you start in Nepal.
If you follow George Mallory and the early British expeditions from the north, you start in Tibet.
Of course they agreed to never tell....
But since it's Tenzing with his ice axe held high in the famous picture taken by someone...we may well guess. :-)
Sounds more like what my grandmother used to say after she sat down on the outhouse seat an hour after I last used it.
I had forgotten about that. Thanks for reminding me. Seriously ;-)
Did they finally give away the gag and announce she was Sheila Jackson Lee?
You are confusing Logan's Run with Logan's Peak...a mistake often made by Canadians who are...
trying to displace Hollywood with Vancouver!
Mt. McKinnley is 20,320' above sea level. Everest is almost 9000' higher. That said, besides spelling and addition errors, if you want to get finnicky, the mountain in Hawaii is the highest, rising up from the seabed.
That said, Denali (Mt McKinnley) is the harder of those to climb. Because Denali is in the Arctic Circle, the weather is always terrible. I know....I've attempted Denali thrice and failed thrice. Perhaps next Spring...
Heh?
The point I was making was that, for the purpose of the present article, it sufficed to name the border as that between Tibet and Nepal. The author insist's on a clarification, however, that it is China's Tibet. It is only so because they annexed it by force and continue to suppress it.
This is an example of what Stalin's and Mao's propaganda machines did best: indoctrinating one with such "innocuous" qualifications. Having seen Tibet invariabley referred to as "China's Tibet," one grows accustomed to this thought.
Much the same think is with the "Russian province" of CHechnya. I am not a Muslim-terrorist sympathizer, but the only reason we are accustomed to this is because it was always referred to as Russian province. The CHechens, and respectively Tibetans, never accepted these as truths.
Yes, I did. I was thinking that must be some truck being able to drive up there with no oxygen. LOL!
Thanks for the much better information about the naming of Everest.
Shocked me. It showed up on my doorstep one day, autographed and everything.
I tried to drive up Pike's Peak without changing the carburetor setting from 'Atlanta' to 'Way Up There'.....
Got to within about 800 ft. when the darn thing conked out.
Had to roll it backward... downhill... on a curvy road... with no power steering.
I felt like I had been turned back at the "Hillary Step" LOL!
Did I tell you? I got a credit in Eric & Jochem's new book.
I will have to get that.
Thanks!
Had to roll it backward... downhill... on a curvy road... with no power steering. I felt like I had been turned back at the "Hillary Step" LOL!
Sounds terrifying!
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