Sweden Renames Birds That Have Racist Sounding Names
By Brian Carey, February 23, 2015.
Meanwhile, in important matters…
Sweden’s Ornithological Society has renamed several birds because the original names sounded racist.
As an example, any bird with the word “neger” (meaning black) in it had that word changed to “svart” (still black, but it doesn’t sound like that other word).
“We kept getting more and more questions from translators of Swedish TV programs and books wanting to know what exactly different bird names were or meant, so we decided to compile a list and while we were doing that we decided to change the names of any birds that could have stirred up a debate,” said Anders Wirdheim, information officer at Sweden’s Ornithological Society.
The bird that was previously named “Zigenarfågel” has been renamed to “hoatzin.” We aren’t sure if that’s because the “genar” sounds too much like that other word or if it’s because of the “fag” sequence in the name. However, the new name might be offensive to some who speak Ebonics since it begins with “ho.”
Still, the renaming effort appears to be an overall success. There are now fewer microagressions that will concern us.
