Former Czechoslovakia

One of my jobs at the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education is editing. And frankly, I'm finding it quite enjoyable. It’s like grading, expect for people who actually speak English. It’s amazing.

Plus, I’m good at being nitpicky. For example, they used the phrase, “’x-state’ lags all other states in….” I thought that “lags behind” sounded better, and I could prove it with transitive and intransitive verbs, but they didn’t really want to listen.

Or, yesterday I encountered a document that referred to one of the countries of the former Czechoslovakia as “the Slovak Republic.” Now, this in and of itself, is correct. But we must look at context. The other countries mentioned were things like: France, Ireland, and the Czech Republic. Each of these country names is its official short version according to the CIA World Factbook. What about the Slovak Republic? Official long name—Slovakia being the official short name.

I brought it up as, “the annoying nitpicky thing that I had to bring up because everything else was perfect and I needed to find an error.” And my direct supervisor, Shawn, brought up “Sudan,” versus “The Sudan.” Or “Ukraine” versus “The Ukraine.” And I thought to myself, ‘well, I’ve never heard of ‘The Ukraine,’ but why is it sometimes called ‘The Sudan?’’

I tried researching it, but I couldn’t find an answer. Why the heck is it sometimes referred to as ‘The Sudan.’ I know that in Arabic it’s as-Sudan, but Iraq is al-Iraq but we don’t call it ‘The Iraq,’ so seriously, what’s the deal?