So, obviously it is time to retire the old YU symbol, since it no longer refers to anything that exists. SCG (fine for graphic resolutions, not so easy to pronounce in a pleasant way) is also gone. So it's off to the International Standards Organisation. For a three-letter symbol, Serbia had the choice of SER or SRB -- no big deal there, the choice seems to have been SRB, fine. But then, there was the choice of a two-letter symbol. ISO rejected the proposal that the new symbol be RS ("Republika Srbija," but their rules do not allow the form of government to be a part of the symbol, they say, which ought to call CH and UK into question, no?). They proposed as alternatives SP, SQ, SS, SW i SX. Not any one of these is especially appealing, but the Ministry of Foreign Affairs chose from among the options the symbol SS.
Is there any point at all in even beginning to set out the reasons why this was a bad decision?
11 comments:
I don't understand how the Serbian people could tolerate such a travesty! except maybe some skinheads!
This last comment from Katja at Yakima Gulag working around a Blogger Beta Bug! :)
Katja, I think that the beta thing works better on some browswers than others. I've had some problems using it with Firefox, but it works okay on Safari.
To say ths least "SS" is idiotic proposal. I do not understand why not SR, even SA... There was big discussion on B92 blog about that yesterday.
Suriname's already bagged SR, and Saudi Arabia has SA, simply enough.
I'm surprised the ISO even offered SS in the first place, though!
It surprised me that "SS" was an option at all. My preferred two-letter-code would be SX, for the reason mentioned here. And the letter X also stands for any mountainous region that stays close to Serbia ;-)
Btw, I don´t think the Drina river has anything to do with the refusal of the RS code (which would have been the best of all bad options, yes). CH and UK seem to be grandfathered, and their governments both have a tradition going right back to the days before 1389 ;-) The UK code is even classified as"exceptional"
That's an interesting list. 'Course I have never seen SU, and US only occasionally. CS came as a surprise, has anyone used it ever?
Well Eric, I'm not able to use Safari,
I hadn't commented in a bit because I wasn't able to do so, then I read something that explained how to work around this bug. It's not necessarily a Firefox thing, it's a Beta thing!
I expect it'll be resolved, they say so at least! :)
@Andras, actually the RS issue is one reason why Serbia rejected the SR option, but they could not have had it anyway because of the 'form of government' thing I think it might have been better to just keep using 'YU' even if there is no Yugoslavia, just because it's better than SS!
So far I actually like Beta! It's fewer steps to publish, always a plus!
Katja, editor, zeka @Yakima Gulag Literary Gazett
Viktor, constructive suggestions! And probably more lucrative than "guntergra.ss" (first proposed, I think, by serbianme.ss)
SRB has to be out of the running! That already stands for Sim Redmond Band, which has its own SRB bumper stickers here in beautiful Ithaca! Think of the mass confusion...
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