@Cerberus er?

Oops.

Something changed two of my o's into e's.

... you missed one

@Cerb Still er.

Must have been Shelob.

@tchrist Oh, haha, Jesus, that makes 3 o's!

I actually had e's in all three lands.

@MattЭллен have you seen Mongolia?

Which had to be corrected into o's.

@RegDwightАΑA maybe you were lying when you said you could draw

Australia.

@RegDwightАΑA Ohh the Soviet Union!

@Cerberus Ding!

I wasn't looking at the inland borders.

I see you have included Kazakhstan.

And probably Ukraine.

All fifteen republics.

But it's hard to tell.

bloody picky Russian

@RegDwightАΑA Next time, do the bay of Riga.

Or gulf.

Whatever it's called.

@MattЭллен saying that the Soviet Union is the same as Russia is like saying that the United States is the same as Kansas.

I guess a gulf is bigger.

Or Deutschland the same as Großdeutschland.

@RegDwightАΑA no, the US is the same as Texas. This I already know.

@RegDwightАΑA and thank deity it isn't, since Kansas is flat and backward.

I'm there now, I know these things.

@RegDwightАΑA Canada.

@MattЭллен and why all of you get so pissed off when we call the UK "England"?

@RegDwightАΑA yes, yes. But we're important.

crap.

lol

Mr Hankey!

lolololol

@cornbreadninja hey you're not supposed to give spoilers.

@RegDwightАΑA no.

@RegDwightАΑA UK is choking onomatopœia, while England is a song.

New Zealand. Mirrored.

The Bermuda Triangle.

@RegDwightАΑA So Middle-earth was right all along then?

@tchrist you'll never make a Balrog outta me

@RegDwightАΑA double no.

@Cerberus Manhattan.

@cornbreadninja Chile?

@Cerberus ding!

@cornbreadninja Nope.

Mainhattan.

No.

Look at the coastline.

@Cerberus love island

It's not an island.

Oh, is tropical.

notes palm tree

The south is land.

dubai

@cornbreadninja It is like a palm tree, but not made out of wood.

@MattЭллен Ding!

@Cerberus scratches head

:D

@cornbreadninja Ahh I needed that.

the world's tallest building gave it away

@Cerberus lol :D

@MattЭллен And the palm thingy, no?

The islands to the west are The World.

@Cerberus only after the fact. I thought it was meant to be a palm tree :D

Another megalomaniac project.

@Cerberus The World is sinking

@MattЭллен But look at how the coast line continues into the palm tree, the white space!

@MattЭллен Is it?

@Cerberus so I hear

Oh.

@Cerberus yes! I thought it was drawn badly :Þ

now I know better

hates palms

@MattЭллен How dare you!

@tchrist Why?

They used to be all the rage.

In 2007 or so.

@tchrist are they hairy?

@Cerberus Because people misuse and abuse them for Noël manifestations.

twentyninepalms / I can feel the heat of your desert heart

@tchrist Really?

We don't have the actual trees here anyway.

@tchrist Palm Sunday?

@Cerberus It's a phonemic problem. The lazy poms took out the L that all fair-tongued folk honor and revere. They perform the same shameless acts of depredation on words like calm, psalm, qualm, and realm. It should be elevated to a Capital crime.

nah, it's quicker and better to kill the whiners

hablando del rey de Roma

You're not the first to call me that

@tchrist salmon

@tchrist What does that have to do with Christmas?

@cornbreadninja try again

Is Palm Sunday near Christmas?

@Mitch concentrates, takes deep breaths

I can never remember all those Christian holidays.

@Cerberus It's near'easter

Yes, or no?

lol

@MattЭллен ohio!

@Cerberus As Wacko said, it’s a Noël problem. I never mentioned Yule.

@cornbreadninja ohai! no

I'm not sure about the top right bit, the border might be further south

Hello everyone... would any moderators have a moment to answer a question for me? I hope this is the right place to ask... I've never used chat on SE before blush

@MattЭллен Poland!

@Cerberus ding!

Nice sea.

lol, thanks

@aaamos Welcome!

thanks :-) ... and I do apologise if I'm interrupting a conversation

@RegDwightАΑA, @KitFox, @Sim, @Waiwai, @Nohat - you have a visitor

@aaamos No need! That's what chat is for!

@Cerberus I thought it said Matt 3nneH all scripty-like

oh, maybe I should do that next time :D

it'll be priceless when I'm famous

or worthless. I get those muddled up

Priceless to some, worthless to others. Like Jackson Pollock.

Bulgaria?

Belgium?

US in 1803?

Probably Belgium, considering the angle.

Yeah

Something with a B anyway.

Bosnia

Benin

Blithuania

That's a triangle.

/_\

@Cerberus no

@Cerberus no

There's Bosnia for you.

@Mitch no

It's a doggy and a horsey cloud that got mushed together.

@MattЭллен no

@ΜετάEd Yes.

so negative.

Germany

@Mitch no

@MattЭллен no

@MattЭллен no

Texas

I always see a face

me too

@MattЭллен no

@aaamos your question being?

Nevada

no, no, no.

@ΜετάEd every country ever. Seriously. The US, Brazil, Bosnia.

is it part of a country?

@RegDwightАΑA: I'm just wondering what horrible sin I've committed in a post a few hours ago... a remark that was intended to be lighthearted seems to have offended several people enough to warrant downvotes. Call me "unable to deal with criticism" ;-), but I found a comment on my post rather... personal.

@aaamos is it still up? Linky please.

@Cerberus France, letting air out.

@Mitch It is now part of two countries.

@ΜετάEd Kosovo.

@RegDwightАΑA: english.stackexchange.com/a/79243/17645

@Cerberus switzerland

Austria

@ЯegDwight Close...but I was rather thinking of an earlier time, and France conquered a bit more in the east.

@MattЭллен The dotted lines represent extended coastlines.

I see the problem (or possible reason for downvotes).

oh

@aaamos oh that. I saw it earlier today. Yes, that bit was rather uncalled for. Even if it was humorous.

The current version is way better.

You' saying that pronouncing it 'ayn-shtayn' is 'correct' and that people who don't say it that way are wrong (I know you're not saying exactly that, but that's how it comes across)

@RegDwightАΑA: hmm, ok... I did remove the bit that I believe offended one guy

And people in English just don't say it that way.

@Mitch: actually, I'm not saying that at all... if you read carefully, I said that's how it's pronounced in his native country... i.e., Germany

@Cerberus europe of some collection. HRE?

@aaamos I can't speak for any of the downvoters, but I would have downvoted the answer because it doesn't address the question.

@Mitch I didn't read it that way.

@Mitch The HRE is one of its three successor states. Notice how it includes France.

Really? (sorry, can't get the @ working for MetaEd...) I thought it did...

I may have got some borders wrong, I didn't look it up.

@ΜετάEd Macedonia?

@aaamos you know, Einstein was born in Ulm unless I'm awfully mistaken. That place has a rather peculiar dialect. I'd hazard the guess that most Germans are completely incapable of pronouncing Einstein's name the way his mother did.

@Cerberus on rereading it..(and the first version, where stuff is edited away), I am more convinced that I am right. The answer sounds in the direction of a rant about foreigners (Americans or the English) not being able to pronounce the original.

@aaamos I agree, and I don't feel that this is unreasonable.

@Mitch It's probably the comment about speakers of English being worse at foreign languages than other people that did it.

@RegDwightАΑA He was, yes... I'm part German, lived in Germany for a number of years, and Germans don't have any problems pronouncing his name the "normal" way...

years*

@aaamos you can edit your stuff here by hitting the up arrow.

@aaamos my point is that there is no "normal" way.

@ΜετάEd Lithuania? Moldavia? that straight line at the top says canadian/us border.

There is a standard way.

Which varies between languages.

English has a standard pronunciation of Einstein, too.

@Cerberus that don't help much.

@Cerberus: Is that so offensive, though? I know I haven't provided proof in the post, but it should be obvious enough that English speakers are the ones who are least able to speak other languages and are thus least able to handle foreign pronounciations

toodles

But the standard German should probably hold some special status, or the way Einstein pronounced it himself.

@aaamos hold on. How is that obvious?

If it's so obvious, certainly it's easily verifyable?

@aaamos I don't find it offensive, and I agree to some extent, though Romance speakers often suck too. But I think it is what people didn't like.

@RegDwightАΑA: ah, ok, got the edit thing... the language speaking you mean? I can google some stats, sure...

@aaamos You can reply to a chat message using the arrow icon at the right hand side of the message. That saves you from trying to autocomplete the name.

Most Germans don't speak English. Most Americans don't speak French. Most French don't even speak French. But which language who speaks worst, is anybody's guess.

@ΜετάEd thanks... you learn something new every day :-)

@ЯegDwight However, even many Oxford professors have a horrible pronunciation of French and Italian.

I think even French professors are not that bad.

In Russian, Einstein is pronounced something like Aynshtayn. With the stress on the last syllable.

@aaamos The question is why Einstein is pronounced the way it is in English speaking countries. You mainly answered the question how would Einstein have pronounced his own name.

@aaamos You did claim that English speakers can't pronounce the sound "sh", which serves as a sort of answer to the question, but on the other hand that's factually incorrect.

@RegDwightАΑA I respectfully disagree... it's compulsory in German schools to start learning English from Year 5 (most do a third language from Year 7 onwards).

@aaamos "compulsory to start learning" is not the same as "actually speak".

@ΜετάEd well, not the "sh", but the "scht", yes

@ЯegDwight It does help.

@aaamos but that's all you say, which lead the reader to think very naturally that that's all you're saying, that the uneducated Americans/Brits can only 'bastardize' others language.

@aaamos "Schtick"

epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index.php/…

see table 1

@ΜετάEd heh, yes... but that's a yiddish import, isn't it?

@aaamos What am I supposed to see?

I see British children learn French in primary school.

@ΜετάEd I did begin with how he would've pronounced his own name, yes, I was trying to make the point that the question was assuming that the English pronounciation was the only concern... may have been a bit too subtle ;-)

@aaamos that particular kind of Yiddishism is the same as in Hoch Deutsch, so not really a different thing.

@aaamos It is. And confounds your claim that English speakers can't pronounce that sound.

@RegDwightАΑA: that's "figure 1", I meant "table 1"

It seems the Netherlands are second after Luxembourg in secondary education, yay!

@aaamos if you are allowed to read your sources selectively, so am I. :P

We have the highest average in all three languages combined.

It shows that a bit over 50% of kids in UK schools learn a second language... for most other European countries, the stats are in the 90's

I still see no correct guesses about the map I posted, but some of the guesses were close (overlaps).

@aaamos the stuff about dumb americans could be relevant, but you didn't say how. Any way the OP is about why do English speakers, who can actually pronounce just fine all the sounds in the original German, do not do the 'sht' part.

and your answer doesn't really address that at all.

@ΜετάEd !

I missed your map!

Where is it?

@ΜετάEd hint necessary: what time period.

@Mitch: actually, it did address that... I started with the German pronounciation, then went on to say that the English pronounciation is a result of English speakers choosing to retain one of the "unusual" bits of the name while dropping the other

Oh, the Belgian map!

@Cerberus chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/5890932#5890932

I thought it was Matt's, stupidly.

My apologies.

Georgia?

Is it Bosnia-Herzegowina without Herzegowina or something?

Probably not.

sorry for being pedantic, I'm not too fussed about the downvotes, I can live with that and if people don't get what I was trying to say I can live with that too... my concern was only that apparently I'd offended one person badly enough to warrant a rather personal comment or two, despite my removal of part of my post. Anyway, thanks for the chat, guys, it's midnight here and I've got to get some sleep.

@Mitch Early 1700's.