So, we're supposed to spell Kiev "Kyiv" now, and pronounce it in a weird way (see later), to show our support to Ukraine. Well, that's a bit of a crap idea, isn't it?
First off, no-one can pronounce it properly. Nowhere, in any official broadcast (including the news), have I ever heard a correct pronunciation. The most popular one sounds like "keev" (which is close but wrong, even though Wikipedia suggests it). If we're to show our support by pronouncing the name of Kiev properly, isn't it insulting to the Ukrainians to get it wrong? And The Public gets their pronunciation from these sources, rather than bothering to look it up themselves, and so fails alongside them.
Secondly, if you're showing support by pronouncing it "correctly", why not do the next logical thing and start spelling it Київ as it's supposed to be spelled?
Thirdly, and this is an obvious one that dullards seem to have missed, is that if you go down the "let's pronounce it correctly" route, you have to do it for everything. Otherwise, you're insulting other countries/places by saying Kiev is important enough, but the other places are not. So, are you going to pronounce Україна correctly from now on? Are you going to spell it correctly? Do you even know where Україна is?
And what about Deutschland, are you going to ditch "Germany" forever? After all, the Germans historically find that name offensive, because it was imposed onto them from the Romans during their occupation, and it then got stylised into what we use today (from Germania, which funnily enough is what the Russians still call them).
And then, of course, what about all of the other place-names in the whole world?
And there's the laughable idea of renaming chicken kievs. That's their name, just like peking duck and bombay mix. Peking and Bombay don't even exist any more, but the food name persists because... well, that's the name of the food. It has historical context, and the food name is now commonplace and separate from the place name. You'll notice that I don't capitalise "peking" in peking duck, for example - that's because of the same reason: It's part of the food name, and it is not a (capitalised) proper noun. You can capitalise it if you want, but it isn't necessary.
You didn't think this through, did you? If it's any consolation, neither did the embassies, governments and news outlets that fell down the same hole. Even if there were rational reasons why we should single Kiev out for correct pronunciation, if you can't think of (or find) a valid reason then you shouldn't be trying it, as that would be stupid. So while you dig yourself out of it, I'll stick with Kiev.
