dhkendall wrote:Nor would I, Namibia is definitely "south Africa". "West Africa" is usually restricted to the bumpy-out part that's quite obvious (ie the part that contains Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Western Sahara, Senegal, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leona, Liberia, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Benin, Togo, and Nigeria. (I don't think that prominent feature of Africa has another name other than "west Africa"))
This has always been a pet peeve of mine, and it has nothing to do with dhkendall. Why do we of the Anglosphere believe we should bow to the linguistic preferences of others when it comes to place names? English is the most widely-spoken language on Earth for a reason (yes, "widely spoken" is different from "most commonly spoken"; anyone who thinks Chinese is more influential than English worldwide is high). The country in bold above is correctly named
(the) Ivory Coast in proper English. As far as I know, anglophones are the only people on Earth who feel the need to do this. "Mumbai," "Kolkata," "Chennai?" Nope, they will always be Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras to me.