Here's something that's always bothered me. Maybe you can shed some light on the subject. Why is it that there are some countries that have completely different names for in English from their native language? I'm looking at you Deutschland. You too Nippon. Don't think I forgot about you Bhārat. Eire, Norge, Italia... you're all on notice.
Maybe the question should be, why don't we call them by their native name? And it's not just limited to English. French has Pays-Bas, Corée, Allemagne to name a few. I can understand, to an extent, when a name is made up of actual words (United States = États-Unis in French, Cote d'Ivoire = Ivory Coast in English), but a name should be a name. If I were to go to another country, they wouldn't start calling me Kodos instead of Matt because that's how they say it. That would be weird... and it's not my name.
I want to single out Germany, because it's case is especially weird. For example... the Olympics, ok? Usually, the countries will be identified onscreen by their 3 letter short form in their own language (NED for Netherlands, SUI for Switzerland) but not Germany... they're GER instead of DEU. What's up with that? Well, maybe what goes on TV screens is out of their control. But then why do they paint GER on their own bobsleds?
I say important things of importance
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