Search The Site
 
More options | Back issues
Home
News
Opinion & Forums
Careers
Multimedia
Chronicle/Gallup
Leadership Forum
Technology Forum
Resource Center
Campus Viewpoints
Services
The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Chronicle Review
A weekly special section
Brainstorm: Lives of the Mind Laurie Fendrich

Where's Czechoslovakia?

During his Town Hall meeting in Albuquerque, N.M. yesterday, the Republican presidential hopeful John McCain made his second gaffe within two days about the Czech Republic when he referred to it as “Czechoslovakia.” Bloggers immediately pounced on the mistake, as did MSNBC. (I saw no mention of it in today’s New York Times, which I found a little puzzling. Did I miss it?)

For those of you who are oblivious about what’s up, or cannot admit to yourself that you, too, are geographically challenged, in 1993 the country of Czechoslovakia split into the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic — the latter more commonly called simply “Slovakia.”

McCain has made this same mistake before — in 2000. President Bush — hardly unfamiliar with the problem of making gaffes — called him on it at the time.

Does it matter? Does it matter that a presidential candidate makes an error like this — not once, but repeatedly, over time? Or are bloggers pouncing on something trivial, something that’s just a little, nothing mistake and should be ignored?

After all, it’s genuinely confusing over there (wherever “there” is) to Americans. We’re known for being weak when it comes to geography (it’s barely even taught nowadays), and Europe has changed its map dramatically since the end of the Cold War. What with the Czech Republic, Slovakia, the Balkan States (wasn’t it easier back when it was just plain old Yugoslavia and a couple of other unpronounceable names?), the Baltic States (What? Where are they?), etc., it’s easy to get all bollixed up about Europe. Wasn’t it neater and cleaner back when the former “Eastern European” countries (now insistent that they be referred to as part of “Central” Europe, and not “Eastern” Europe) were just parts of the Soviet bloc? (Soviet bloc? What was that?)

I never thought it mattered much that McCain graduated from the Naval Academy with a class rank of 894 out of 899. His post-college political career; his courage when he was a prisoner during the Vietnam War; his often thoughtful, independent-thinking mind made up for all of that. Some presidents have excelled as undergraduates (George W. Bush Sr. was elected to Phi Beta Kappa at Yale) and some didn’t (Eisenhower ranked just below the bottom of the top third at West Point). The qualities necessary to be president of the United States extend far, far beyond what’s revealed in an undergraduate academic record.

Yet it’s precisely because we’re talking about a presidential candidate, and not an undergraduate, that causes bloggers’ hackles to rise over McCain’s mistake about the Czech Republic.

While academics fret over what American college students don’t know and why they don’t know it, they should, in all fairness, measure them against a presidential candidate who, if subjected to a Margaret-Spellings-style outcomes assessment exam on the layout of post-Cold War Europe, would not be able to pass it.

Posted at 09:20:20 AM on July 16, 2008 | All postings by Laurie Fendrich

Comments

  1. McCain Supporters: Don’t Google: “The wife U. S. Republican John McCain callously left behind”

    — Kirk Muse · Jul 16, 10:14 AM · #

  2. There’s a great cell phone commercial airing right now. It’s about a guy who doesn’t have enough “bars” to get a call telling him how to correctly pronounce a Big Japanese client’s name.

    Because he doesn’t receive the call, he ends up addressing the client as “Mr. Stinky Fish-Face,” and the client storms off.

    If people in business are expected to be culturally sophisticated, why should we NOT expect the same of our president? —Especially when he touts foreign policy as his big strength.

    — JM · Jul 16, 10:53 AM · #

  3. The guy is TOO OLD, and likely it’s just a bit of senility creeping up on him.

    — dream · Jul 16, 11:46 AM · #

  4. I suggest that what you see is the unconcious bias and fear within the upper class—conservative and liberal—with the notion of a black man becoming president. Teflon John is no accident: Our mainstream media are subtly—and often not so subtly—applying a different standard of excellence to Obama than to McCain, allowing the latter to skate on what is becoming obvious to a lot of people about John McCain—-that he has a tenuous grip on honesty, integrity, and performance. He is totally unsuited to be a president and his party is disgraced. But he is even in the polls. Why? Because the wealth in this country and the media they control are lining up for McCain. Why? Because they are, at their core, afraid of African Americans.

    — Ramon D'Arbeau · Jul 16, 11:59 AM · #

  5. What’s Obama’s excuse? HE said we have “57 states”. What an idiot.

    — Bob · Jul 16, 12:50 PM · #

  6. Let’s think this through a little. We normally refer to the political entity “The French Republic” (la Republique Franc,aise) as France (la France). We normally refer to the Federal Republic of Germany as “Germany”. Technically the political entities are different analytically and linguistically from the countries. The same is the case with Slovakia. But “the Czech Republic”, originally a joining of Bohemia and Moravia, has no readily associated “country” name. What do we do when we want to refer to the country and not the current political polity? Ive started using the term “Czechskia” but for people who have no experience with Slavic languages, that’s unlikely to happen.

    So what are we actually to call the country — as distinct from the polity?” And remember it has been “Czechoslovakia” for all but the last few years of McCain’s life. Hell, I still call that big island off the coast of China “Formosa”. And I for sure will continue to call both the island and the country off the coast of India “Ceylon” and not “Sri Lanka” because most English speakers cant say [sri lanka] anyway. No English word ever starts with the sounds [sr..].

    — Joseph F Foster · Jul 16, 01:39 PM · #

  7. To Joseph Foster (#6):

    Ok, It is hard for you to name the island off the southern coast of India by its modern name (the name changed in 1972). What is your excuse for not referring to “that big island off the coast of China” by its modern name?

    Getting back to McCain & his repeated gaffes, if he’s still referring to the Czech Republic by the wrong name (after all, when he says Czechoslovakia, is he referring to the Czech Republic or Slovakia?), then that is also a reflection of the types of advisers he’s got working for him. I mean nobody on his team brought to his attention that he referred to the same country twice by the wrong name 2 days in a row? Imagine what our European allies are thinking of this guy who prides himself on his foreign policy expertise and experience.

    — Jack · Jul 16, 03:22 PM · #

  8. Jack,(#7) if you’re a native speaker of English and have not had training in phonetics or do not speak fairly fluent Sinhalese, it is also hard for YOU to “name that island off the Indian coast and I’ll bet you get it wrong, like almost all Americans who try to say it do. As to “Formosa”, the point was in the context that for those of us who grew up in the 40s and 50s and even early 60s,it was ‘Formosa’ just as it has been “Czechoslovakia” almost all our lives. When you are older perhaps you will understand. But I don’t need an “excuse” for calling it ‘Formosa’ and ‘the Republic of China’ — I’ll call it whatever I please. Do you call Germany ‘Germany’ or ‘Deutschland’?

    But the main point I evidently did not make clear. “The Czech Republic” is a reference to a geographical entity WITH a particular temporal polity. It’s hard to figure out in English what to call it if we want to refer to the ethnogeographical entity alone. There was a ‘land of the Czechs’ long before there was a Czech Republic. So it’s hard to figure out what to call the country as opposed to the polity. So it’s understandable that Americans — and maybe even Czechs, will differ on how they handle it.

    — Joseph F Foster · Jul 16, 04:11 PM · #

  9. McCain (God forbid) is elected President. He goes to Bratislava on a state visit. Shaking hands with Slovakia’s president, he says, “It’s great to be here in Czechoslovakia.” When the Slovakian president (who speaks English) recoils, ashen-faced, McCain smiles and adds: “As to “Formosa”, the point was in the context that for those of us who grew up in the 40s and 50s and even early 60s, it was ‘Formosa’ just as it has been “Czechoslovakia” almost all our lives. When you are older perhaps you will understand. But I don’t need an “excuse” for calling it ‘Formosa’ and ‘the Republic of China’ — I’ll call it whatever I please. Do you call Germany ‘Germany’ or ‘Deutschland’?”

    — LuckyJim · Jul 16, 04:27 PM · #

  10. I knew a professor once who had defected from behind the Iron Curtain and was miffed that his American passport stated that he was born in Hungary. He always insisted that he was born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and lamented that the passport authorities wouldn’t print his birthplace as such.

    — ExiledCreole · Jul 16, 04:37 PM · #

  11. Joe, you are working a little too hard here at defending John McCain’s use of “Czechslovakia” for what is now “The Czech Republic.” When I go to Prague am clearly in the latter, rather than the former. I have some neighbor’s who are originally from Prague. I’ll ask their opinion on this when I see them. The gentleman of the couple is an Eastern European languages specialist for the US Department of State, so I expect he will fill me in.

    People have lots of difficulty pronouncing various names of countries, and the Anglicized versions are often (usually) different from the form of the name within the county itself. Whether one can correctly pronounce Sri Lanka as a native would has little bearing on the fact that the name is no longer Ceylon. I pronounce it something like “Shreee LON-ka,” which is doubtless not perfectly correct, but it is closer that “Say-LON.”

    In many cases, national names have changed to reflect cultural self-determination and a break with colonialism. In Indonesia (one of the many nations that has come into being since my birth in the early 1940s) there have been successive changes, and many of these reflect a conscious effort to distance the present from the colonial past. Some Indonesians are a little offended to see coffee sold in America under the archaic “Celebes Kalossi” name, since that area has long been the Toraja region of Sulawesi Selatan. The old name refers to and recalls Dutch colonialism.

    It is important for those who are involved in making international policy to know current and former place names and the reasons for the changes.

    On the other item, if I am not mistaken, the Obama comment regarding “57” did not refer to “states” but to the number of election and caucus events (or “contests”) involved in selecting the Democratic Party’s candidate. Of course, I could be wrong, but it strikes me that “an idiot” is about the least accurate term imaginable in referring to Obama. One wonders how anyone capable of writing would consider that an appropriate way of describing Obama. Oh well, I guess some people will say just about anything.

    — Joe Erwin · Jul 16, 05:05 PM · #

  12. Excuses, excuses, excuses… It is Habana and not Havana, Colombia and not Culombia, it is nuclear and not ‘nukelar’… I expect a lot more of a possible president of the most powerful country in the world. The world has changed and we all know that, why not to expect that of a person who could be president?!
    Another Bush? God forbid.

    — Luis F · Jul 16, 06:20 PM · #

  13. Luis (12), if you go to the following URL
    http://www.slate.com/id/2071155/sidebar/2071156/ you can read the letter that Merriam-Webster sends to eveybody who writes in complaining about their listing of the pronunciation [nyukyular] — your “nukelar” in their dictionary. “Nyukyular” is a quite regular English pattern — cf molecular, particular, circular — while X-lear is quite unusual. That pronunciation is characteristic of a number of American English dialects. Dwight Eisenhower pronounced it that way also, as do many Americans. As to Colombia, the first vowel is unstressed in English as in Spanish but in English, unlike Spanish, unstressed vowels all fall together into the mid central vowel we represent phonetically as an upside down [e] and on the web as [@]. It is the sound of the last vowel in the word ‘sofa’. What you’re hearing for your “Culumbia” is that mid central vowel called “schwa”. BTW G W Bush actually speaks Spanish (as do I) and when speaking Spanish, we both have the [o] vowel and not the schwa in the first syllable.

    And as you probably know, the second consonant in the name of Cuba’s capital is actually neither a [b] nor a [v]. It is a “bilabial spirant’ represented phonetically with the Greek letter “beta”. It does not occur in English but is closer to [v] than to [b]. As Mr Erwin notes above, we often have difficulty with sounds that are not normally a part of our particular languages.

    — Joseph F Foster, Ph D - Linguistics · Jul 16, 08:29 PM · #

  14. Yo, people! McCain’s flub isn’t about pronunciation, and it’s not about new names for a country vs. old names for it. It’s about a country that hasn’t existed for sixteen years because it was split up! If McCain had said Ceylon for Sri Lanka or Burma for the Union of Myanmar, that’d be one thing. But he’s insisted—twice! (plenty of time in between for Joe Lieberman to whisper in his ear to correct him)—on calling, in effect (as ExiledCreole has pointed out), Hungary the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The question the linguistics doctor should answer: Does McCain’s “Czechoslovakia” have its capital in Prague or Bratislava or, by some secret treaty, both?

    — LuckyJim · Jul 16, 08:59 PM · #

  15. The queswtion of the capital, Lucky Jim (14) is not a linguistic question so there’s no reason I should answer it. But I will. The capital of what for a period of around 70 years was Czechoslovakia is Prague. McCain’s use of ‘Czechoslovakia’ was in reference to Bohemia-Moravia, not to Slovakia, whose capital is and always has been Bratislava. Onece again “Lucky” obtuse Jim, the problem is that when we go to France we happen this year to go to the French Republic. When we vacation in the Tartra, we are in Slovakia—the current polity called the Slovak Republic. But there is NO WORD available in English (or Czech??) to use for the country that now comprises Bohemia and Moravia — but not Slovakia—and whose capital is Prague — no word for the country. We only have the word for the current polity — and it is awkward. So it’s hard to know what to call it. We normally dont call France “the French Republic”. And names of countries are often like neckties. Wait long enough and they come back into fashion. When I was growing up, it was the Congo. Then it became “Zaire” — now it’s the Congo again. I didnt have to change back because I kept calling it the Congo. But the case with Czeskia is that there IS NO common name for the country apart from the polity. Cheskia isn’t going to catch on and I dont thinkg “Bohemravia” will either. So it’s more likely than usual that a person will fall back on a familiar name, even though it is no longer appropriate.

    — Joseph F Foster · Jul 17, 06:14 AM · #

  16. And I thought my old friend on the left, Anti-hypocrisy advocate, was slippery. All these name changes, necktie fashions, countries vs. polities, etc.—it’s a wonder that in the midst of all this geopolitical deconstruction/poststructuralism where nothing is certain, anybody can get a letter delivered.

    So, a few answers to a few questions might help suss out a general answer:

    * Does the country that now comprises Bohemia and Moravia have an embassy or consulate in the United States? If so, how is it listed in an American telephone directory?

    * When the leader of that country visits the United States, how does he (through an interpreter, if necessary) announce himself to American officials?

    * When the citizens of this country join the army, what army do they join? What does American military intelligence (I know, an oxymoron) call this army?

    * When the citizens of this country pay their national taxes, into what treasury does it go?

    * When I send a letter to someone living in this country, what country-of-destination do I write on the envelope, in English?

    And finally, an op-ed rhetorical question: Do you honestly think that Sen. McCain—the guy who had to be corrected on camera by Sen. Lieberman about exactly who was coming into Iraq from Iran, the guy who pawed his face on camera for 30 seconds struggling for an answer to the issue of Viagra vs. birth control that his own spokesperson, Carly Fiorina, had put into play—is really only responding to the linguistic uncertainties of Central European “polities” when he “fall[s] back on a familiar name even though it is no longer appropriate”? I don’t, and I suspect the linguistics doctor (unless he’s playing McCain’s academic Melvin Belli) doesn’t think so either.

    And as to “obtuse”: flattery will get the good doctor nowhere.

    — LuckyJim · Jul 17, 07:12 AM · #

  17. It’s the Czech Army, LJ ((16). ‘Czech’ is an adjective, not a noun.

    As to your other questions about telephone directories &c., they are largely beside the point. They envolve the polity.

    — Joseph F Foster · Jul 17, 08:12 AM · #

  18. Gee, and here I thought Sen. McCain was a politician, dealing with politics, meeting with political leaders from other, er, polities, aspiring to higher political office, etc. And all along, the guy’s actually a cultural anthropologist, physical geographer, and linguistic poststructuralist, running for Chairman of the Department of Central European Languages. Ah, obtuse ol’ me.

    PS: Is “envolve” a Czech word? I know this is picayune/snarky, but I am talking to “Joseph F Foster, Ph D – Linguistics,” right?

    — LuckyJim · Jul 17, 08:46 AM · #

  19. Yes Jim, you are. envolve, enquire, ensure….are common alternate spellings. And spelling is rather trivial anyway.

    On the matter at hand, by your most recent line of argument, McCain should never use the word “France” but only the phrase “French Repbulic”.

    — Joseph F Foster · Jul 17, 09:21 AM · #

  20. “Prof” Joseph F Foster (#19),

    There is NO such word as “envolve,” according to the Merriam-Webster’s dictionary. But, then again, YOU are God, and who are we to question your knowledge & expertise on all things known to the rest of us, right? I am sure, McCain could use you as his spin doctor to get him out of just about any tricky situation, if he’s elected, God forbid.

    — Jack · Jul 17, 09:44 AM · #

  21. If “France” had voluntarily divided itself in the early 1990s into two separate countries, one called “French” with its capital in Paris, and the other called “Republic” with its capital in Marseilles, then, no, McCain shouldn’t say “France” when referring to either of the two.

    The good doctor of linguistics must be a ballet dancer, too. The only way he can now stand in that tiny corner of linguist quibbling into which he’s backed himself is en point.

    — LuckyJim · Jul 17, 10:14 AM · #

  22. Indeed Mr. Jack (20), I probably lumped “involve” as ‘envolve’ in analogy with words like ‘encircle, enfold, encase, encompass…’. But note that listing in “the” or “a” dictionary doesn’t make something a “word” and there is no linguistic basis for the claim that something is “not a word” or “no such word” simply because a dictionary does not list it. And thank you for your profession of faith.

    Mr. Jim (21), there never has been a name for Bohemia~Moravia as a country. “Czech Repbulic” is a name for the polity. They went right from being “pvovinces of the AustroHungarian empire to being the western part of a cobbled together country. Common ethnic group – Czech- but I dont think Czechland will catch on either.

    — Joseph F Foster · Jul 17, 12:28 PM · #

  23. From the official website of the Czech Republic:

    “Discover the Czech Republic: its culture, economic situation and standards of living. Find out unexpected aspects of the Czech Republic, a country in the very heart of Europe.” [Emphases mine]

    On the same official website of the country called the Czech Republic: “…the Czech Republic consists of: Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia.”

    But what do these people know, anyway.

    (This is getting tedious. One more hairsplitting reply and, I swear, I’m going to start linking to RateMyProfessors.com.)

    — LuckyJim · Jul 17, 01:08 PM · #

  24. Your Official Website is really beside the point and shows that you continue to miss mine. If you go to the following URLs:
    http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/france.htm
    http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/france.htm
    http://lessites.service-public.fr/cgi-bin/annusite/annusite.fcgi/nat1?lang=uk

    various sites of the French government, you will see they all use the “logo” which says “Republique Francaise”. They dont say “(la) France”. But there nonetheless exists a common name for the ethnogeographic region “la France” in French and “France” in English, as distinct from the official name of the political entity, ‘Republique Franc,aise’. There is no similar term in English for that for the ethnogeographic region governed by the polity of the Czech Republic. That’s all Im saying and it’s simply a matter of observed fact. But it suggests that Mc Cain’s “Czechoslovakia” may not necessarily be the evidence of intellectual depravity and ignoramosity (yes there IS such a word – I just used it.) that it was presumed to have been.

    Now you go to RateMyProfessor if you like. I am quaking with fear.

    — Joseph F Foster · Jul 17, 01:40 PM · #

  25. Let me get this straight: that the Czech Republic refers to itself on its own official website as a country (and not a “polity”), and happily includes Bohemia and Moravia as part of that country, which has existed for more than fifteen years now is…“beside the point”?!!!

    I thought that point was whether or not a candidate for the highest office in the land, an office that every once in a while has intercourse with the presidents (or their equivalents) of other countries, made a mistake in the name he used for one of those other countries.

    The fact (I’ll take your expert’s word for it) that there’s (breathe in) no word in English for the Czech equivalent of the ethnogeographic region that is “la France” (breathe out), is what’s really beside the point. And I’ll take a wild guess that Sen. McCain—who’s not “depraved” or whatever that neologism means, just uninformed—would be even more mystified by its supposed relevance to his mistake than I am.

    No, I don’t want to go to the linguistic doctor’s RMP. I want somebody else to do it, and report back. Probably no takers, though, and I can understand.

    — LuckyJim · Jul 17, 05:17 PM · #

  26. Well Jim, I give up. I can’t think of any other way to try to explain it to you. And I have other things to do. As to “reporting back” from RateMyProfessor, anybody can go there. Just as anybody can post on there who wants to. And if you go to Ask a Linguist, you can read a lot of things I along with the other panelists have written. You can even post a query.

    Hope you stay lucky,

    — Joseph F Foster · Jul 17, 06:32 PM · #

  27. Isn’t this the same guy who admitted awhile back that he doesn’t know the difference between Shiites and Sunnis? While it’s hard to differentiate between the two tribes who differ primarily in their interpretation of who should have carried on Muslim leadership after the prophet Muhammad’s death( in the 600s)—the Shia believe it should have been a relative of Muhammad’s son-in-law Ali and the Sunnis believe in an elected official—it’s kind of an important distinction especially for someone who wants to be the president of the United States about to engage in the biggest foreign policy debacle of recent times. He should WANT to know these things!

    — gardenia · Jul 21, 01:23 AM · #

Commenting is closed for this article.
Copyright © 2008 by The Chronicle of Higher Education | Contact us
User agreement | Privacy policy | About The Chronicle | Site map | Help
Subscribe | Advertise with us | Press inquiries | RSS | Today's most e-mailed
Home | Chronicle Careers | The Chronicle Review