Certain Ideas of Europe, the Economist’s Europe blog, reports that a new article on Euromyths has appeared on the European Commission’s website. It lists the most amusing, including:
Nutty EU officials want to rename Bombay mix Mumbai mixto make the snack politically correct. They say the Indian city of Bombay has been called Mumbai since 1995 so the old name could offend because it dates back to colonial rule.
The euro made me impotent…now a German man claims the switch to the single currency has had a similar dire impact on his personal liferobbing him of his manhood.
Apparently there was a Euromyth a few years ago that motorway bridges have to bear a bust of Jacques Delors, and another that there were to be warning signs on mountains telling climbers that they were high up.
Sadly, this reflects what the British press either believes or thinks its readers want to believe about the EU. Some of the bureaucracy has gone too far, but some has also been reversed. So here is an Independent article of March 2007 on 50 reasons to love the European Union.
Earlier entries:
Language and the EU
“Hippoglossus hippoglossus & chips twice please, luv” / Clupea harengus schon wieder?