Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002 08:45:22 -0500
From: "Smith, Allen" <asmith@mail.barry.edu>
Subject: Suzhou vs. Soochow
To: billions@public1.sz.js.cn
Cc: histonet@pathology.swmed.edu

Bob Richmond has performed a real service for older histologists.  Americans over the age of 40 learned geography when the accepted English spellings of foreign place names were based on the usual English mispronuncians rather than on the actual names. Thus, I learned Suzhou as Soochow, Beijing as Peking, etc.  Chinese places weren't the only ones to get this treatment.  We learned the capital of Turkey as Angora instead of Ankara and the capital of Georgia as Tiflis instead of Tiblisi.  The Italian cities of Firenze and Livorno were Florence and Leghorn to us.  Even in this day of reformed spelling, most Americans write Vienna instead of Wien and Copenhagen instead of Kobenhavn.

With apologies for our provincialism,

Allen A. Smith, Ph.D.
Barry University
School of Graduate Medical Sciences
    Podiatric Medicine and Surgery
Miami Shores, Florida  33161-6695