Economists are telling us that inflation is at 6 percent—but it seems a lot higher. I’m paying twice as much for half-and-half as I did just months ago. Gasoline is now the same price as Dom Perignon champaign. (I’ve never actually bought Dom Perignon, but I hear it’s, like, $5 a gallon.) Hamburger has gone up 20 percent and ketchup is up 15 percent. Hotdogs now cost 14 percent more. Over Memorial Day weekend when everybody was having cookouts and in desperate need of hotdogs, a semi carrying 15,000 pounds of raw “untubed” hotdog, um, material, flipped over on a Pennsylvania freeway, leaving a fortune in pink goo spreading out on the pavement. Oh, the humanity! (Okay, maybe it wasn’t as bad as the Hindenburg disaster, but it was a terrible loss of, well, hotdog.)
The country of Turkey currently has an inflation rate of 73 percent. Food costs have risen 92 percent with fuel and transportation prices up nearly 110 percent. Something had to be done. So, Turkey decided to change its name.
While changing the name of a country or a city isn’t easy, it happens all the time. Holland is now called The Netherlands. What used to be Ceylon is now Sri Lanka. The Czech Republic is now Czechia (or Czechnia). The African country of Swaziland was changed to Eswatini because the king didn’t want people confusing his country with Switzerland. (Like they would.) Ivory Coast (a lovely name and easy for Americans to say) has been changed to Cote d’Ivoire. This was probably just them showing off their French. Turkey itself is no stranger to name changes. It’s ancient city of Byzantium was changed to Constantinople, named after the Roman emperor Constantine who converted Rome to Christianity and around 1930, the name was changed to Istanbul. Now, Turkey wants the country to have a new name, not associated with that bird we have on Thanksgiving.
Turkey’s new name is (approximately) Turkiye—I say “approximately” because it is supposed to have two dots over the “u”—like a German umlaut. This appears to be yet another linguistical extravagance like the little teepee shape that goes over the first “o” in Cote d’Ivoire. You would think the leader of the country would not be embarrassed by the name “Turkey”, which, at least in English, means “a silly or stupid person” or “something that goes terribly wrong”. But President Erdogan has been pushing to adopt a name that is, in his words, “…the best representation and expression of the Turkish people’s culture, civilization and values.” “Turkiye”, in the native language means “little yellow chicken”—no, I’m kidding. But it could be worse. They could have picked a name like Virgin Island or Iceland or Hungary. They could have chosen a worse food name than “Turkey”—like Greece or Chile or Hamburg or Bolonia. And speaking of inflation, the complete official name for Bangkok, Thailand is: Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit. Try saying that with your mouth full.