Walk in Beauty

As is, indeed, my national culture. And, yes, my nation.

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The most significant feature of words is that they can be used to tell lies. At an early age I reached the opinion which I have never since then let go, that my life would have been much simpler and more pure if I had never learned about words. And you can be quite certain that I would have been able to communicate the really important things without words.

On the other hand the meaning of human life apparently is not that it should be simple and easy.

I just read in this article that a cartoon character named Øpera-tan is supposed to personify the Opera browser? Øpera? There is nothing new in non-Scandinavians fumbling cluelessly around in the alphabet when they try to somehow deal with Scandinavian names, but usually the replacements of letters go the other way around.

What might be the purpose of changing an o into an ø? To make the name look Scandinavian? It doesn't.

I used to be an editor at Danish Wikipedia. When I left there had for some time been a completely absurd discussion about the Danish naming of a neighbouring country which by its own inhabitants is called Nederland. The most peculiar aspect of that wrangle was the fact that some Dutchmen who do not speak, write, read nor understand the Danish langauge still felt called upon to lecture the Danes about the correct use of our native language!

For the sake of truth and balance it should also be said that some Dutchmen expressed a pragmatic and relaxed attitude to the question and explicitly stated that what is correct Danish should be decided by the Danes.

I know very well that some Dutchmen feel offended by the way that their country is named in some other countries, mine included. I'm afraid that they will just have to live with it and hope for a gradual change. Naming practices in any given language are decided by a lot of different factors. Some of those factors are only really understandable to people who know those languages very well.

I am willing to listen to people if they tell me that I hurt their feelings by doing what I do, saying what I say or writing what I write. In my view it is important to respect other people's feelings, no matter who is "right" and who is "wrong".

I also like to learn from people who know about some of those many topics where I feel that my knowledge is insufficient. But I am not particularly inclined to letting myself be lectured by people about what is "correct" in a field that I happen to know very much better than they do.