"Colombia" is the country. No letter "u" in it.

[raccoon]

"Columbia" with the letter "u" is the capital of SC. Also a city in MO and probably other states too.

This isn't aimed at any particular Lounge lizards. In fact, I thought of posting this on GD, but it probably would be moved.

I was browsing an thread about cutting aid to Latin America and saw many instances of the country's name misspelled.

Just a pet peeve of mine.

[mainegreen]

1. Kullumbuia. Got it.

:7

[GirlinContempt]

2. Yeah it's annoying, eh?

Never expect someone to google the country and come back at you with any sort of pertinent response if you're arguing though ;)

[El Fuego]

3. I have to tell people that all the time.

In every job I've ever had I've had to correspond with Colombia. Sometimes people at my office try to tell me I'm spelling it wrong! :rofl:

[fudge stripe cookays]

4. Embarrassing story...

I learned this the hard way, when I wrote a technical document several years ago and submitted it to an STC contest. Even my EDITOR did not catch the difference.

I will never misspell the country again!
:blush:

[Elidor]

5. Clearly, they misspelled it when they started the country

The original typo was on their end, and we're just cleaning it up for them.

Yeah. That's it.

[unpossibles]

6. some wanted to call America "Columbia"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Columbia



Columbia was also a female national personification of America, similar to the male Uncle Sam, the British female Britannia and male John Bull, the Italian Italia Turrita and the French Marianne, often seen in political cartoons through the early 20th Century.

The term Columbian was used to mean "from the USA" and there have been suggestions that it should be used again as an alternative word for "American", but has not re-entered general use. The establishment of the nation of Colombia in 1819 resulted in the name "no longer being available as a national name" for the United States (Stewart, p. 173).



Colombia - Etymology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colombia#Etymology

The word "Colombia" comes from the name of Christopher Columbus (Cristóbal Colón in Spanish, Cristoforo Colombo in Italian). It was conceived by the revolutionary Francisco de Miranda as a reference to the New World, especially to all American territories and colonies under Spanish and Portuguese rule. The name was then adopted by the Republic of Colombia of 1819 formed by the union of Venezuela, New Granada and Ecuador.

In 1830, when Venezuela and Ecuador separated, the Cundinamarca region that remained became a new country: the Republic of New Granada. In 1863 New Granada changed its name officially to United States of Colombia, and in 1886 adopted its present day name: Republic of Colombia.