this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2025
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The president of Mexico on Thursday expressed hope that Google "reconsiders" its decision to change its online maps to reflect U.S. President Donald Trump's claim that he has the authority to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico.

Shortly after taking office, Trump issued an executive order announcing he was changing the name of the body of water to the Gulf of America.

For U.S. users of Google Maps, the gulf was listed as the Gulf of America as of Thursday. Google, whose CEO attended Trump's inauguration along with other tech moguls, said last month it has "a long-standing practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources."

But Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum warned Thursday that her government "will file a civil suit" against Google if it does not revert back to labeling the international body of water the Gulf of Mexico.

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[–] [email protected] 224 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (5 children)

Why bother with this? If you want to make a point, pass regulation in Mexico to call E.E.U.U. (US in Mexico) be called Northern Mexico. Then Google is forced to comply on that territory like they claim they do for disputed sections when maps are viewed from that region. It would make for some funny reactions from people visiting Cancun or Puerto Vallarta.

Edit: plus it would show how stupid the whole rename thing is to begin with.

[–] [email protected] 184 points 5 days ago (6 children)

TIL…

The abbreviation E.E.U.U. (often written as EE. UU.) stands for Estados Unidos (United States) in Spanish. This abbreviation follows a grammatical rule in Spanish where doubling the initial letters of each word indicates plurality

So you taught me something today I did not know. Thank you!!

[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 days ago

That rule existed in Portuguese as well, but they dropped that as indication of plurality is just... wasteful

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Interestingly (or not) it's also used in French but only in one case that I'm aware of. Monsieur is abbreviated to M. while messieurs (plural) is MM.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

Oh, 2 M's touch.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 days ago

I always wondered why it had double letters. Thank you!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

See, I learned this in Spanish class in my American high school, and I don't think that linguistic fact stuck with me! Thanks

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 days ago

Just let our mexican and Canadian neighbors take over the USA. We've proven to be unworthy of making wise choices.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Wait what do they call the European Union then because that's still EU in Spanish as well.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 5 days ago

It's UE in Spanish, from Unión Europea. (Non-doubled letters because it's a single Union, there's no plural like in "States").

Sometimes people in Spain do use the English acronyms for both EU/USA, but I don't think I've seen it often. Both UE and EEUU are more common from what I've seen, and also people rarely say these out loud, it's exclusively a written language problem.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 days ago (1 children)

If we’re going to play that demagogic game, why not make “United States of America” be shown as “United States of North America” to reclaim the continent name back? Companies will comply if it’s an official request.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 days ago

They are both states united and in north america....

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

No contaban con mi astucia!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

Currently in Mexico, it displays the name your phone region is set to. It still shows Gulf of America on my phone, even when I am on Mexican WiFi.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Google is one of many propaganda arms of the US govt. I highly doubt they'd comply with that as it doesn't fit in with their political agenda.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 days ago

At that point they would be like twitter in Brazil when they didn't comply with fines and were blocked at the country level: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y06vzk3yjo