Given Putin's latest utterance.,...

Thank you for sharing that. I had no idea it was used to say it is basically still an extension of Russia. Admittedly when I say media used it back in the day I mean quite literally I.e. over 10 years ago. I don't watch mainstream news now, and I'm not on any social media (I imagine this could be a current hot topic on there? Maybe, or maybe not). I tend to just say 'Ukraine' anyway, but when I've heard it in the news previously referred to as 'the Ukraine' I thought nothing of it. I certainly didn't know about the 'borderlands' thing until Supertyke mentioned it. Again, thanks for sharing.

 

Thanks. Isn't 'Kiev' just the English/western way of spelling it though?

 

It sounds like that would be the case doesn't it but Kiev is actually the Russian way of saying it that we've just always used.

 

I guess you'd have to trace it back. It's like Krakow. In English it's 'Cracow.' English people tend to say it how it's spelt too, but it's actually 'Krackuv.' My Polish friend's city is a particular favourite: Przemysl is said 'P-Sh-eh-mish.'

 

Lots of new countries including Belgium , the Netherlands ,and numerous in Africa . Only bullying nations oppose their legitimacy .

 

Stand up to bullies. It's the only way out. Don't listen to cowards and don't vote them in to government.

 

I think Putin has stolen ronnie Moores hat

 

Ronnie was endearing , Putin could never take his place ,
Mark Magee however ?

 

Cheer up Raaaa as Puteen
Oh what can it mean
to a

 

I disagree with Pompey Red's stance on multiple threads (post #2) and also Loko's -albeit I acknowledge it is his personal view.

This thread has become the perfect example of why I believe that multiple threads on a similar topic are often (not always) better than a single long one. However, this only applies where the point raised is sufficiently diverse from the original related thread title.

This particular thread has expanded, not because of replies to the OP subject matter, but because it became hi-jacked- (for want of a better term) by, not only by a discussion on long threads vs multiple short ones on a similar topic, but also whether or not 'Ukraine' should be referred to as 'The Ukraine'.

I do, whenever possible try to post on an existing thread, but, as was the case here, felt my point was a specific one, worth posting under a separate heading rather than getting lost within the 39 'epic' ' Russia invades Ukraine' one. Even that ended up briefly as a discussion about seafood (mainly crabs) before someone started a separate thread on the subject and got the original one back on track.

Some threads, often political ones, end up with multiple pages when two people with polar views engage on a 'one on one' debate which on occasions turns a bit 'salty' not helped by others 'stoking the flames' and pitching in on both sides. That is understandable when feelings and passions are running high, but it is another reason some of us feel like starting afresh if they wish to come at a particular topic from a different angle.

All the above just my honest opinion.

 

Look what you’ve started here
Why did it come to be referred to as “the Ukraine”? Especially since the Ukrainian language has no articles like the or a at all? According to some historians, after Russia came to control Ukraine and used it to form a monarchist empire in 1721, and after that one’s failure, to form another communist one in 1922, the colonizing powers insisted that Ukrainians are not an independent nation. The Russians labelled Ukrainians with the epithet “Little Russians,” and censored the national name Ukrainians. Their native homeland was deprecated in favour of the province of “Little Russia,” and its name Ukraína misconstrued as the Russian word okráina, “borderland,” merely a geographic feature. Russian emigrant academics and Moscow’s diplomats exported their worldview and propagated the English the to denigrate Ukrainian nationhood.

The Ukrainian nation was actually born in the periphery of Poland-Lithuania, at the edge of Europe, and on the margins of the Christian world, but the largest country inside Europe is nobody’s marches or buffer state. When it was recognized as independent, major English-language media dropped the article the, literally on the following day. We no longer use it.

Of course, each of these places is special in its own history.

Some other countries, including ones mentioned above, are losing their the-appropriateness as they become well-known proper entities in their own right, and their geographical etymology fades into obscurity.

 

Novichok or polonium would be my choice.

 

Chill out pal. I haven't 'started' anything. I said I didn't know it had anything to do with borderlands or Russian origin or whatever. And I used to hear it growing up in the late 90s/early noughties, way after its independence, and it wasn't all those big, bad Russians that live all over tarn saying it, it was on the 6 o clock news. Don't try and denigrate me or twist what I've said to make yourself look better. I'm not even saying people should use the 'the'. Peace.

 

Thanks mate. I won't use it either - I don't anyway just because it's always sounded a bit weird to me, just as 'the England' would - but good grief what a furore. A sign of the times unfortunately.

 

I agree Jamdrop. I also like smaller threads. Personally I would not choose to open and read all of a massive thread which might cover a very broad spectrum of subjects within one much larger theme. Eg. a large Ukraine thread would probably discuss many diverse aspects of the conflict. I would be more likely to open and read smaller, more specific threads discussing for example:- Putin's rants, or no fly zones, or specific countries or towns or regions, or military tactics, or NATO, or economic responses, oligarchs, yachts, F1 drivers etc.
I suppose you can't suite everyone.

 

Bring back the threaded view. Millions of posters are thinking just that. I'm one of the few to say it.

 

It was MUCH better with threaded view. Very few people who actually used it would argue against it