MapQuest surges in popularity against Google Maps for refusing to cater to Cry-Baby-trump stupidity and maga-nut case idiocy

MapQuest (and Apple Maps) refuses to rename Lake Ontario... or any American city named Ontario for that matter.

Maybe a Sharpie isn't so powerful after all.
Former maga-nuts who now acknowledge they were misled and decieved.

Edit - Update: Apple has since capitualated following Google's complicity, refusing to state why. In a social media message, MapQuest said, "we're not changing it" in regard to the name change. MapQuest quickly got a boost, with downloads jumping more than 300 percent and the app becoming the number one downloaded app in the Navigation category of apps.

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ElwoodBlues · M

Actually, you can tell google maps to use Canadian naming

Changing Region Settings on Computer
☸ Open Google Maps on your web browser.
☸ Click the country or region indicator or menu option in the corner/side panel.
☸ Go to Search Settings.
☸ Look for Region Settings.
☸ Change the region to Canada.
☸ Click Save

Changing Region Settings on Mobile
☸ Android: Open your device Settings, go to System or General Management, select Languages & region, and change your region to Canada.
☸ iOS (iPhone/iPad): Open device Settings, tap General, select Language & Region, and change your Region to Canada.

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ElwoodBlues · M

@ArishMell Google actually gets mapping names from government databases. So, it seems google didn't alter anything, the US Geo Survey entered the change and it propagated thru automatically.

AI overview
Google Maps relies on official government databases as its primary name authority and source. For U.S. domestic features, it defers to the U.S. Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) maintained by the U.S. c, updating local labels whenever federal designations change.

ArishMell · 70-79, M

@ElwoodBlues I didn't think Google had changed it, but the government had.

LordShadowfire · 51-55, M

@ElwoodBlues I didn't know that. I assumed Google was bending the knee.

LordShadowfire · 51-55, M

I'm going to have to start using MapQuest myself, I guess.

MarkPaul · 26-30, M

@LordShadowfire Yes! Sadly, Apple gave in later in the day with their new CEO stating American users will see that new stupid name and the rest of the world will continue to see Lake Ontario. They declined to comment on why they capitulated.

MapQuest is the lone holdout and enjoying a hefty resurgance in use and downloads for standing for sanity and maturity.

ArishMell · 70-79, M

I must admit I had to turn to my atlas to understand this matter.

I'd not known the Canada / US border follows the approximate centre-lines of Lakes Superior, Huron, Erie and Ontario in downstream order; and I am surprised that L. Ontario is not named as neutrally as its fellows.

I don't know the history though. For example, what is the etymology? If "Ontario" was the lake's original, indigenous name then the Canadian province was named after it, not vice-versa; and the name of the lake itself would likely be right in what became both countries.

Still, I'd always understood naming a shared waterway is by full agreement of all its bounding countries. So as I don't imagine Canada was even asked, internationally this instance is as meaningless and pointless as was re-naming the Gulf of Mexico to G. of America.

This re-naming for no-one's benefit but the current US President's, can of course be reversed.

What will he re-name next, to what? I can imagine that setting all the betting-shops buzzing!

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Waveney · M

@ArishMell I LIKE it!!

DeWayfarer · 61-69, M

@ArishMell

I don't know the history though. For example, what is the etymology? If "Ontario" was the lake's original, indigenous name then the Canadian province was named after it, not vice-versa; and the name of the lake itself would likely be right in what became both countries.

I've posted this a few times already. Some of this actually came from a etymology site.

Iroquoian word "Ontarí:io," meaning "great lake" or "beautiful water," and was in use by at least 1639, long before the province or city of Ontario were established.

Trump isn't insulting Canadians at all. The Canadians were honoring the Iroquoian and Wendat native Indians.

He is insulting native Americans on both sides of the lake. Ontarí isn't even English or French.

Yes. Iroquoian languages were spoken on both sides of the present-day U.S.–Canada border—the border came much later than the peoples and languages.

The broader Iroquoian language family included peoples in what are now:

° New York and parts of the northeastern United States: Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora
° Southern Ontario and the Great Lakes: Wendat (Huron), Petun, Neutral, and related communities
° The Southeast U.S.: Cherokee, whose language is also Iroquoian but geographically more distant

The name Ontario is generally connected to a Wendat/Huron term associated with the lake. The Wendat homeland was mainly in what is now southern Ontario, but their trade, migration, alliances, and conflicts extended into areas now within the United States.

So “Iroquoian” does not mean exclusively Canadian—and neither does the history of the Great Lakes.

The region’s Indigenous history predates the modern national border by thousands of years.

ArishMell · 70-79, M

@DeWayfarer Thankyou for the explanation. It makes the change of name even less logical!

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