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| Outback sign painted with traditional Indigenous names sparks Aussie debate |
I mentioned that I was reading Nancy Pearl's 'Book Lust' in my last post -
Neuro-Nancy?
Ironically with all the news in the Australian Media about 'The Alice' and its English name, Nancy Pearl starts her book off with a category about books written by authors with the first name of Alice.
Alice Springs (Eastern Arrernte: Mparntwe) is the third-largest town in the Northern Territory of Australia.
Known as Stuart until 31 August 1933, the name Alice Springs was given by surveyor William Whitfield Mills after Alice, Lady Todd (née Alice Gillam Bell), wife of the telegraph pioneer Sir Charles Todd.
Now colloquially known as The Alice or simply Alice, the town is situated roughly in Australia's geographic centre.
It is nearly equidistant from Adelaide and Darwin.
The area is known as Mparntwe to its original inhabitants, the Arrernte, who have lived in the Central Australian desert in and around what is now Alice Springs for tens of thousands of years.
I've lived in Australia all my life, but I've never been to The Alice ... I mean Mparntwe, or even the Northern Territory, Western or South Australia.
One day I'll get around to reading all of those books:-) [UPDATE 2023 ... NOT!]
And I might even make a trip out to The Alice ... I mean Mparntwe one day, too?
UPDATE: March 8th, 2021
The area is known as Mparntwe to its original inhabitants, the Arrernte, who have lived in the Central Australian desert in and around what is now Alice Springs for tens of thousands of years.
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| Alice (name) |
And I've not even read any books about The Alice .... I mean Mparntwe, not even Nevil Shute's book 'A Town Like Alice'.
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| Nancy Pearl's Australian fiction recommendations:-) |
I guess 'Lady and the Tramp' will be on the chopping block next for promoting insensitive Asian stereotypes?-)
And let's not even contemplate Mickey Rooney's "comical" take on an Asian landlord in 'Breakfast at Tiffany's'.
Speaking of books AND "Cancel Culture", which your road sign seems to show to this Yank, what do you think about the Dr.Seuss book ban happening in my country?
ReplyDeleteYeah Dan, I saw that in the news today over here and am thinking about doing a post about it too, but I'm working on about 20 posts already at the moment.
ReplyDeleteI'm against hard core racism and I'm against fascist book burning as well.
"Cancel Culture" is getting ridiculous and I'm wondering if some of these guys/gals ... whatever the PC term is for anybody these days is ... are just taking the piss out of this situation.
It's a slippery slope I reckon when everything is put under the PC microscope ... and that's not an Asian racist crack either, when I write "slippery slope" :-)
I have Asians in my extended family that I love very much ... they're the ones you see walking down my street with chop sticks and carrying a bowl of rice:-)
I might have to cancel this comment now if the humourless PC police read it.
I should explain for those who don't know, that one of the books dropped was because of an Asian character in the book drawn as carrying a bowl of rice and some chopsticks.
DeleteAs for the road sign I think dual names should suffice.
ReplyDeleteThe way things are playing out between Australia and China politically at the moment that sign will probably be written in Chinese in another 10 years ... or just a big pile of ash anyway :-)