-------- Original Message --------
Subject:        Re: The Chronicle: Daily News Blog: Oxford U. Press Pulls
Geographical Dictionary After Outcry In India
Date:   Wed, 30 May 2007 10:44:51 -0700
From:   Brian Bach <[log in to unmask]>
To:     [log in to unmask]



In my experience, India has been one of the more tolerable environments
regarding typos and other editorial accidents.

The contributor responsible for the error apparently associated the
name Bangalore with the Bangla (Bengali) language. Anyone approaching
India should know that literature and documentation concerning things
Indic as being absolutely voluminous, from the most obscure district
gazetteer to the most banal of reference works.  Accessibility to
accurate knowledge is hardly a problem. To me the slip-up says more
about scholarly (or even digital?) laziness, than anything.

This story is an example of Western media engaging in the process of
'discovering' South Asia, seemingly a hobby as of late. The assumption
is often made that many things concerning India and its neighbors always
run in extremes. OUP has had close associations with India since the
second half of the 19th century. Pulling erroneous volumes was probably
done more from OUP's embarrassment than from any sort of 'outcry'.

Brian

Brian P. Bach
Documents/Maps
Brooks Library
Central Washington University
400 E. University Way
Ellensburg, WA 98926-7548
USA
[log in to unmask]
http://www.amazon.com/Calcuttas-Edifice-Buildings-Great-City/dp/8129104156


>>> Maps-L <[log in to unmask]> 5/30/2007 8:59 AM >>>
forwarded from Carta-L

-------- Original Message --------
Subject:        The Chronicle: Daily News Blog: Oxford U. Press Pulls
Geographical Dictionary After Outcry in India
Date:   Wed, 30 May 2007 11:51:48 -0400
From:   Marcel Fortin <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To:       maps-l
To:



I just read about this on the Annoyed Librarian blog...not sure if
it's
made the rounds yet:


http://chronicle.com/news/article/2346/oxford-u-press-pulls-geographical-dictionary-after-outcry-in-india




      May 21, 2007


      Oxford U. Press Pulls Geographical Dictionary After Outcry in
India

Oxford University Press has suspended sales of a gazetteer published
in
2005 after an outcry over errors that was led by historians and
government officials in the southern state of Karnataka, the /Khaleej
Times/
<http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/subcontinent/2007/May/subcontinent_May784.xml&section=subcontinent&col=>
reports. Among other errors, the book, the /Concise Dictionary of
World
Place Names,/
<http://www.amazon.com/Concise-Dictionary-Place-Names-Paperback-Reference/dp/0198605374/ref=sr_1_1/103-7209588-5546265?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179746591&sr=1-1>
says that the local language in Bangalore, Karnataka*s capital, is
Bengali. Actually the language is Kannada. Bengali is spoken in
Bangladesh and neighboring regions of northeastern India.