"British Columbia"... ok what the heck!

Now, it seems to be a N.Am thing, naming probs... I mean the US has 50 of them as opposed to Canada's 10 (13 in summer) and they just flat ran out of ideas, which explains two Carolinas, two Dakotas, two Virginias... and this started early on; a couple of the original colonies were named "New Somewhere-Back-Home" as if they were stuck for originality right from jump.

Could be worse; could be Mexico, who got so stuck for State names they had to call one after the most useless and meanest little canine there is.  I mean take something that used to look like a proud and noble wolf, shrink it down so's your average wharf rat could kick its ass, and what do you expect??  Not the dog's fault... but if they were trying to appease the malignant little runts it sure as hell didn't work.  Not on one of them, ever.

But the subject was Canada... so point out to me where "French Columbia" is, that they had to differentiate it.  There isn't one.  Nor a Russian Columbia (they could have named Nunavut that I guess, and it'd make more sense) or Croatian Columbia or Malayan Columbia or even Elbonian Columbia, which makes the most sense of all.

"British Columbia"... what were they afraid of, that all the frogs in QC were going to pour in droves across the whole place just to get to the ocean?  Unlikely.  There's a much closer one.  Even they know that.  But seriously, was it named "British Columbia" primarily as a French repellent?  If so I can think of better... like, soap.

"British Columbia"... newsflash, Pommies, it's about as far away from the UK as you can get and still be in Canada.  I mean cripes.  Way on the other side...

...on the subject, why even "Columbia"...?  As I recall that daft Italian landed like 5, 6, 7000 miles away as the crow flies and even longer if it floats, which as I also recall is what he did.  Of course, what else he did was to land on a little speck of an island, yell, Oh wow, ASIA! and sail right on back home to spread the word as fast as his unreefed canvas could carry him.

Here's a good one:  Another name for canvas is "duck"-- so, bet someone that Columbus used "duck power" to cross the ocean.  G'wan, do it.

But back to "British Columbia"... no, not.  Get them to change the name to just plain unadorned "Columbia" and we'll all be happier, including the cartographers.  Of course, it would just be nicknamed "C." then... and "I went out to C." might be mistaken for "I went out to sea".  But there are worse probs to have and I think I covered most of them.

OK, and something else... I found Albertosaurus, Edmontosaurus, even Edmontonia...but just d4mn if I can find anything called Saskatchewanosaurus.  Or even Saskatoonosaurus, and look, you can't get much cooler of a name than that outside of Dr. Seuss.

Maybe no one has EVER liked the place...?

—Ron Copis