The Czechoslovak Review/Volume 2/What's in a name?

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

The name “Czechoslovak” is getting to be somewhat more familiar to the people of this country. What all the propaganda and newspaper writing could not accomplish was effected by the Czechoslovak soldiers in Siberia. The American people today are familiar with this new word, although one may well doubt, whether the great majority of the people who read the headlines only and not the detailed accounts know even now who the Czechoslovaks are. A good many of them still think that the Czechoslovaks are one of the many political parties in Russia, parties with terrible names like the Bolsheviki, Mensheviki or the Social Revolutionists.

A good many people who know the meaning of the word “Czechoslovak” have no idea of its pronunciation. At a Czechoslovak meeting held in one of the larger Eastern cities with a considerable Bohemian population, the chairman, a former governor of the State, insisted over and over on praising the brave and patriotic “Ze-ko-slo-vaks”.

But the best one comes from Italy. It seems that the editor of an Italian daily, full of zeal for the new Ally of his country, wrote an article in which he intended to approve of the attitude of his government toward the liberation of the Czechoslovaks. But unfortunately the unaccustomed name tripped him up and he spoke of the new Italian Ally as the “Greco-Polaks”.