Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Shroud of 'Torino'?

The Olympics start up again on Friday and I'm looking forward to it. If you can get past the endless feel good stories of athletes with horrible lives there's a lot to enjoy. I'm always curious to see what a host nation will put together for the opening ceremony. The themes and engineering always interest me.
But I've had one nagging problem with the upcoming games. For centuries (literally centuries) the English speaking world has called the upcoming host city 'Turin'. The Shroud of Turin is probably the most widespread mention of the city. For some reason though, the Italian pronounciation 'Torino' has become the main useage. To my ear that sounds pretentious. If the games were further south we wouldn't call them the 'Roma' games would we?
Well, I've been a bit harsh on the STrib of late. Let me give them some praise today. It seems that they are going to stick with tradition and refer to this fine Italian city as 'Turin'. Good on you, STrib!

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