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Vaud Council of State“Rebaptizing Lake Geneva is not necessarily a bad idea”
The government officially responded, but with humor, to a joke of April 1 of an elected official who proposed to call the Lake “lake of the canton of Vaud”.
Lake Geneva should keep its current name for a while.
ChTalosYou may have discovered it on April 1: an elected representative Vert’libéral had deposited a wacky arrest on the Grand Council with the Council of State to rename the Lake Geneva in “Lake of Canton of Vaud”. “The time bisounours of benevolent multilateral meetings is behind us,” said David Vogel. He therefore suggested that the canton shows its “grandeur” and “affirms its territorial claims” on the lake, referring to the Gulf of Mexico renamed Gulf of America by the will of Donald Trump.
This joke has just received a very official, but just as wacky, response from the Vaud government. And it’s caviar. This begins by doing a history lesson: “The arrest raises a question that has concerned the authorities for nine centuries,” he wrote, recalling that the oldest known map evokes Lake Geneva as the “Lac de Lausanne”.
And he continues: “renamed Lake Geneva is not necessarily a bad idea to establish the notoriety of the 3rd canton of the country”. He also recalls that grammatically, “Lake Geneva” is a pleonasm, since “Lake” means “lake” on the etymological plane.
“It takes a short time to write”
Some may think that the canton of Vaud has nothing better to do than respond to this kind of joke. But Roland Ecoffey, head of the external affairs office (and responsible for the answer), retorts: “It is really quick to write and that does not require any particular precautions”, he explains. In addition, he recalls that the Council of State has the duty to respond to the interventions of any deputy. “Unless the latter removes his text, which the author did not do in this case,” he said. “Normal, this subject is not trivial, it touches something sensitive.”
Unwelcome costs
But he tempers: this change would cause problems. He “would involve renamed the Museum of Lake Geneva in” Museum of the Lake of Canton of Vaud “. This would involve signage and stationery costs for the museum and undoubtedly also indirect charges unwelcome for the city of Nyon and the canton, “he explains.
Arrested on how to potentially achieve its ends, the government refuses any economic threat. “This would prove to be counterproductive for our trade, as demonstrated by international news,” he said. But he adds that “the use of military threats is not completely ruled out”, even if there would be a concern for “credibility”. The Council of State prefers the gentle method. “Attached to the virtues of dialogue and diplomacy, he would try to convince his neighbors of the merits of his approach.”
Lake Lake heckled already on “Plans”
Definitely, Lake Geneva tickles the jokes. A few days ago, users of the Apple plans app managed to replace the name Lac Léman by Lac de Genève by exploiting a system of the system. The error was corrected soon after. However, the largest lake in Western Europe is often called Lac de Genève, especially in English (Lake of Geneva) or German (Genfersee). But in French, Lake Geneva owes its name to the Dufour map, published in the 19th century, which decided on this appellation.
