WTF, Traditionalists Go Dalsro Yourselves

It's not everyday that there is complete consensus about the change of name of a place. But, then, unlike traditionalists of both kinds who wanted to change/retain Bombay/Mumbai, Calcutta/Kolkata, Madras/Chennai and Allahabad/Prayagraj, the good people of the Swedish village of Fucke have sent in an application to the National Land Survey for their home town on the northeastern coast to be officially renamed 'Dalsro', or 'Quiet Valley' in Swedish. So, are the inhabitants of Fucke - the names given to them by fellow Swedes from other parts must have hurt - so squeamish that they are choosing tradition over sniggers? Nope. It's Facebook to blame, which constantly censors any post the folks of this village with 11 households that mentions their home town.

Last year, the Austrian village of Fucking - even as the 'u' was pronounced as 'oo' - named after a 6th-century Bavarian nobleman Focko, changed its name to Fugging after the wrong sort of tourists came to take their selfies against signposts there. 'Fucke' could have got its perfectly non-English respectable name from the Old Norse word 'fokka', or 'wedge-shaped land'. But what the Dalsro! Traditionalists can take a hike. For, the people of the 'Quiet Valley' can soon now get back on social media without the trials and tribulations of silly administrators and the Anglophonic sniggerati.