Why don't we call other countries what they call themselves? That would seem the neighborly thing to do, but we don't do it. This probably is why there are so many wars.
I'm reminded of this weirdness during the Olympics. Last week in London, Lithuania's basketball jerseys said Lietuva on them. Its fans chanted "Li-tu-va, Li-tu-va," not "Lith-u-a-ni-a. Lith-u-a-ni-a."
So, it seems, that nation calls itself Lietuva. What then is Lithuania? Is it a name we made up for somebody else's country? Why do we do that? Don't you think you should be called what you call yourself?
"Hi, I'm your new neighbor, Bill Jones, nice to meet you."
Lietuva is not the only country we don't call what it calls itself. What we call Sweden calls itself Sverige on its hockey uniforms. Finland's uniforms say Suomi.
"Likewise, but I'm going to call you Strom Thurmond."
I called Inga Lukavičiūtė in the Lithuanian Embassy and asked this: What is the name of your country? "In English, it's Lithuania," she said, "but in Lithuanian, it would be Lietuva."
I think we should say what the Lietuvans say.
William Altman, honorary consul for Lietuva/Lithuania in Houston, told me "Lietuva is Lithuanian for ‘land of the rain' as the country is very green and lush and gets significant rainfall each year." So why don't we call it Rainland? There's Iceland, Greenland, Switzerland, Swaziland and England, but I don't think anybody is using Rainland.
Lietuva is not the only country we don't call what it calls itself. What we call Sweden calls itself Sverige on its hockey uniforms. Finland's uniforms say Suomi. Norway's say Norge, meaning that's what that country calls itself or it's hockey team is sponsored by an appliance company.
We're not the only ones who do this. The French refer to England as Angleterre. There is some justification: "Terre" is French for "land" and "angle" is French for "eng."
Some other countries call us something other than what we call ourselves. But that's because our nation's name is made up of regular nouns — "united" and "states" — occurring in most languages. So in French we're les États-Unis. In Spanish, we're los Estados Unidos. I'm OK with that — OKer than I am with us referring to Lietuva as Lithuania.
Let's close this year's Summer Olympics experience with reader Nancy Wedemeyer's keen insight into the next one, scheduled for August 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, which means the next Summer Games will be held when it's winter in Brazil. (Ms. Wedemeyer evidences an enviable eye for the extraordinary.)
Two previous Summer Olympics were held south of the Equator, where the seasons are the reverse of ours: Sydney in 2000 and Melbourne in 1956. But both were held in spring, not winter, in Australia.
We are four years from the first Summer Olympics held in winter, which means hurdlers in snowshoes. Actually, the weather should be fine in Rio (it's been in the low 80s this August), but this still is wrong. When the Summer Olympics are held in winter, then global warming has won.
