John Hudson wrote: > At 06:33 2/25/2002, Marco Cimarosti wrote: > > >Alain LaBont� wrote: > > > [...] Who knows? What is the word for "gipsy" in Romanian? [...] > > > >"Rom", in fact: I just asked this to a Rumanian colleague. > > I presumed this was the reason for the code change 'request' from the > Romanian government. Bigotry against and persecution of the Rom is a > long-standing Romanian tradition: one of the few constants of > the country's political scene.
I hope that you are wrong, although your suspect does not lack plausibility. But the present case could perhaps have a more positive explanation: many Romanians are indeed Rom (Gipsy) so, maybe, everybody felt it was inappropriate to call all Romanian nationals with the name belonging one single ethnical group. It would be as calling any USA citizens were called "Californians": although there is nothing particularly good or bad in being a Californian, it is not generally deemed appropriate to call Texans "Californians". (Or, anyway, I'm told that it's not advisable to should "You're all Californians" while entering a truck driver's diner in the middle of Texas). _ Marco
