The Irish Rovers sang about the biggest mixup that you have ever seen: he was christened David Anthony, but still in spite of that, his father called him William while his mother called him Pat.
Picture the feelings of Lake Ontario this morning. It was christened Lac Saint-Louis by Samuel de Champlain, but it’s woken up to Canada calling it William and the US calling it Pat – or rather, Lake America (without the “of,” as Trump helpfully specified in his video on Truth Social).
Do you really need two Dakotas?
Although Lac Saint-Louis is surely a better and more historically founded name than Lake America, one can sympathize with the American compulsion to rename things. After all, what would Texas be without a little American intervention? (Mexico, as it happens.) But while President Trump has the map out on his desk and a good pen in his hand, there are a few other names he might like to update.
First of all, from up north here, calling your capital Washington, DC seems like a wasted opportunity. You already have Washington State. Why don’t you add George to the capital and call it George Washington, DC? It’s much catchier, it fleshes out the historical reference and it would save an awful lot of confusion. Or better yet, you could simply call it America City. Like New York City, Kansas City, Sin City and all those other great American cities. It would fit right in.
Canada has heard that America is feeling uncomfortable because the oceans on either side of it have alien, foreign-sounding names like Atlantic and Pacific. Here there is no room for subtlety or historical allusion, because other countries also have coastlines on these oceans and you don’t want there to be any lack of clarity about who’s most important. Best to keep it simple: in the east, Ocean of America, and in the west, American Ocean. So the coast with America City borders on the Ocean of America, and the coast with Washington State borders on the American Ocean. As a bonus, the new name would send a clear message to China.
No offense intended on this next one, and of course Canadians understand people who live there have a lot of feelings about this. We don’t want to be insensitive or anything. But do you really need two Dakotas? Dakota is a very nice name. But is the relative location of these two states truly the most important thing about them? To be honest, the North-South thing sounds a bit like an ideologically fractured east Asian country. Maybe the northern one could be renamed American Frontier. That actually sounds pretty cool, and would nip any would-be Kim Jong-uns in the bud.
Now this is more about home decoration, but we do think that having your nation’s most important building painted white is a bit of a missed opportunity. What about a new, patriotic color scheme? Red, white and blue suits the Home of the Stars and Bars. There’s a classic Cold War joke about the space race, in which the Russians get to the moon with a space tanker full of paint and color it a bright Soviet red. The US, not to be outdone, sends up a tanker of white paint and a giant made-in-America stencil. When they’re finished their work, the moon projects the victor’s slogan: Drink Coca Cola. There’s a lesson here for contemporary America: stay on message.
On that note, why not rename Disneyland Americaland? Disney is one of America’s biggest exports, after all. And then you’d have an Americaland just east of Paris, which would be kind of cool. All it would take is one tiny executive order. And McDonalds sounds Scottish; AmericaBurger sounds way better. (Best merge with Five Guys while you’re at it). Would you like freedom fries with that?
At the end of the day, Lake Ontario doesn’t really mind. It’s had name changes before. Canada has more important things to worry about, like a trade deal. Call it what you want, just don’t call us late for dinner.
Comments