Can you name the commonly accepted country name alternatives and acronyms in Sporcle? by tahitiwahini

Can you name the commonly accepted country name alternatives and acronyms in Sporcle?

created by tahitiwahini

Enter a country name alternative in the box below
Correctly named country name alternatives will show up below
Answers do not have to be guessed in order
This quiz consistes of two categories of country name abbreviations: ones commonly accepted in published Sporcle quizzes, and new proposed abbreviations covering all the multi-word countries.
Source: Countries of the World quiz published by Sporcle
The rules for the proposed multi-word abbreviations (which now include oceans and seas) are very simple: use the first letter of each word in the common Sporcle name of the country to compose the acronym. Omit insignificant words: "and", "of", and "the". There are eleven exceptions to this rule: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, El Salvaldor, Equatorial Guinea, Marshall Islands, Saudi Arabia, Solomon Islands, Sierra Leone, and Sri Lanka. For these exceptions the abbreviation is merely the first word of the multi-word country name: Bosnia, Costa, Czech, Dominican, El, Equatorial, Marshall, Saudi, Solomon, Sierra, and Sri. These exceptions, which are necessary to eliminate conflicts with other abbreviations, are noted in the quiz by an asterisk. I was unable to come up with an acceptable abbreviation for South Africa or St Lucia. Abbreviate with Confidence™ All of my quizzes use both the commonly accepted Sporcle country name alternatives and the multi-word abbreviations (http://www.sporcle.com/user/tahitiwahini/contributed). The Border Country Biathlon and Border Country Marathon are good ones to look at to see how these abbreviations work in practice: http://www.sporcle.com/games/tahitiwahini/border_country_biathlon_1_of_16 http://www.sporcle.com/games/tahitiwahini/bordering_medium_countries_1
This quiz has not been verified by Sporcle

Popular trivia games today

Famous with Sunglasses

7028

World Capital Border Blitz

4081

Isn't It Ironic?

4021

One-word Movie Mix-and-Match

2964

Word Ladder: Gemstones

2828

Missing Word: Top Grossing Movies (1990)

2695

Clickable 1-100 Mines

2181

Facebook Relationship Status

1761

And more...

PLAY GAME

03:00

Show Missed Answers

Commonly Accepted or Proposed	Abbre-viation	For This Country
Acronym		Antigua and Barbuda
Acronym		Burkina Faso
Acronym		Cape Verde
Acronym		Central African Republic
Acronym		Cote d'Ivoire
Acronym		Democratic Republic of the Congo
Acronym		Federated States of Micronesia
Acronym		Guinea-Bissau
Acronym		New Zealand
Acronym		North Korea
Acronym		Papua New Guinea
Acronym		Republic of the Congo
Acronym		Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Acronym		San Marino
Acronym		Sao Tome and Principe
Acronym		South Korea
Acronym		St Kitts and Nevis
Acronym		Southern Sudan
Acronym		Timor-Leste
Acronym		Trinidad and Tobago

Commonly Accepted or Proposed	Abbre-viation	For This Country
Acronym		United Arab Emirates
Acronym		United Kingdom
Acronym		United States
Acronym		Vatican City
Oceans		Indian Ocean
Oceans		North Atlantic Ocean
Oceans		North Pacific Ocean
Oceans		South Atlantic Ocean
Oceans		South Pacific Ocean
Seas		Caribbean Sea
Seas		East China Sea
Seas		Mediterranean Sea
Seas		Philippine Sea
Seas		South China Sea
First Word		Bosnia and Herzegovina *
First Word		Costa Rica *
First Word		Czech Republic *
First Word		Dominican Republic *
First Word		El Salvador *
First Word		Equatorial Guinea *

Commonly Accepted or Proposed	Abbre-viation	For This Country
First Word		Marshall Islands *
First Word		Saudi Arabia *
First Word		Sierra Leone *
First Word		Sri Lanka *
First Word		Solomon Islands *
ACCEPTED		Myanmar
ACCEPTED		Central African Republic
ACCEPTED		Democratic Republic of the Congo
ACCEPTED		Timor-Leste
ACCEPTED		Côte d'Ivoire
ACCEPTED		Federated States of Micronesia
ACCEPTED		Republic of the Congo
ACCEPTED		Saint Kitts and Nevis
ACCEPTED		Saint Lucia
ACCEPTED		Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
ACCEPTED		United Arab Emirates
ACCEPTED		United Kingdom
ACCEPTED		United States
ACCEPTED		Vatican City
	Vatican City

Javascript is not currently enabled on your browser.
If you do have Javascript enabled:
This site uses javascript to make the magic happen.
Please turn on javascript and reload this page, or use a more current browser (like Firefox)

You might also like these games:
Answers in Common	Least Common Sporcle Countries	Most Common Sporcle Countries

There are 45 comments for this game.
(Warning: comments may contain spoilers)

Common Sporcle Country Name Alternatives Quiz

by tahitiwahini

Created Jan 17, 2011 in Geography
Game Plays 702

Friend Scores and Standings

Loading friend results....

Top Games Today in Geography

Top Games with Similar Tags

Top User Games in Geography

	tahitiwahini:	Jan 17th, 2011 at 22:47 GMT		1 point
	Just an effort to encourage more quiz creators to allow these commonly accepted country name alternatives in their quizzes. All of these common alternatives except one are accepted in the published "Countries of the World" quiz which has been played 3,497,337 times at this writing. The one exception is "Rep Congo", which, while it is not an "official" Sporcle abbreviation in the sense that it is accepted by that quiz, nevertheless seems to have acquired the status of an unofficial alternative for Republic of the Congo and is accepted by many user created quizzes.

	tahitiwahini:	Jan 17th, 2011 at 22:48 GMT		1 point
	Although this is almost certainly well known to anyone reading this, for completeness sake, I should mention that it is not necessary to use "and", "a", or "the" in the answer to a quiz question. Similarly, neither case nor punctuation is required. Punctuation includes: spaces, periods, dashes, apostrophes, etc. So for example, "stkittsnevis" would be perfectly acceptable if the expected answer were "St. Kitts and Nevis". That is, you need not enter the period following the abbreviation for Saint, the spaces separating words, nor the conjunction "and". Similarly, "cotedivoire" would be accepted for the expected "Cote d'Ivoire".

	chriskotx:	Jan 17th, 2011 at 23:07 GMT		-3 points
	I think it is a principle of reciprocity that if English speakers are expected to say/spell Cote d'Ivoire, French speakers should be expected to say/spell United States of America and United Kingdom.

	tahitiwahini:	Jan 17th, 2011 at 23:10 GMT		1 point
	I stand corrected: the "Countries of the World" quiz does in fact accept "Rep Congo" for the Republic of the Congo. So all 14 of these abbreviations are quasi-official Sporcle alternative country names.

	tahitiwahini:	Jan 17th, 2011 at 23:51 GMT		0 points
	@chriskotx: lol Well, I'm pretty much willing to go along and use whatever name a country or city wants to be knows as. So I've no problem with Cote d'Ivoire, or Myanmar, or Macedonia, etc. If the people who live there want to reduce tourism by 50% to their capital by changing it from something easy like Rangon to Naypyidaw, or from something simple like Colombo to Sri Jayawardenapura-Kotte that's up to them as far as I'm concerned. I'm even willing to relearn a name if necessary. I'm on board with Beijing for Peking. And I'll even say Krung Thep for Bangkok if they want me to. But there are some lines I'm not willing to cross ;-) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGjb0hGOX-Y

	daHOOK:	Jan 18th, 2011 at 01:03 GMT		8 points
	Tahitiwahini is correct in omitting it, but PNG should be on this list.

	shakescene:	Jan 18th, 2011 at 10:46 GMT		2 points
	More time, please! Like 5 or 6 minutes.

	smarty:	Jan 18th, 2011 at 11:17 GMT		5 points
	i know these aren't common alternatives but i think NZ should be one and PNG too. as in, they should be ones but i'm not suggesting for you to put them on this quiz because i know they're not common alternatives.

	tahitiwahini:	Jan 18th, 2011 at 13:18 GMT		1 point
	@shakescene: I've increased the time to 3 minutes.

	tahitiwahini:	Jan 18th, 2011 at 13:20 GMT		1 point
	@daHOOK and smarty: I like both of those suggestions and will start using them in the quizzes I create from here on out, maybe they will catch on.

	dino566:	Jan 18th, 2011 at 16:02 GMT		1 point
	also you could add Macedonia

	thebantams1903:	Jan 18th, 2011 at 16:25 GMT		2 points
	enjoyed that quiz. I was baffled for a moment though because I miss-read 'alternative' as 'alliterative'. I typed in UAE then sat there wondering how it was alliterative, then I read the question again....

	IronFirefly:	Jan 18th, 2011 at 16:50 GMT		2 points
	Amen, a must take quiz prior to making a geography quiz!

	tahitiwahini:	Jan 18th, 2011 at 20:31 GMT		1 point
	@dino: I see what you mean but I never see Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia show up in Sporcle as the country name, it's always just Macedonia. So while I don't dispute the official name, I feel justified in just using the commonly accepted Sporcle name. Just as I wouldn't expect to see Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya for Libya, I would be surprised to see Macedonia's official name appear in a Sporcle quiz. If what you type in and what you typically see displayed are the same thing than I don't regard what you type in to be an alternative. To be a little clearer perhaps, these are commonly accepted alternatives to the commonly accepted names of countries.

	bwouns:	Jan 18th, 2011 at 23:03 GMT		4 points
	I don't understand why Micronesia is included. I know the official name is Federated States of Micronesia, but if this is included, shouldn't all countries which are not often referred to by their full official name be included also (China for People's Republic of China, for example). Or is there some reason this is different?

	tahitiwahini:	Jan 19th, 2011 at 00:57 GMT		0 points
	@bwouns: fair point regarding Micronesia. If the "Countries of the World" quiz is really the gold standard here, then it probably shouldn't be included because in that quiz Micronesia is the displayed country name (not Federated States of Micronesia). My position has been that these alternatives exist because they are different than what is displayed (i.e., the Sporcle commonly accepted name of the country). I believe there are some quizzes where Micronesia does display as Federated States of Micronesia, but I can't find them now to point to them, and I do have to concede it's not done that way in my gold standard quiz. So why should Micronesia be treated any differently than say, China? It turns out the term Micronesia applies to an entire subregion of Oceania (one of three subregions, the others being Melanesia and Polynesia): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micronesia The subregion Micronesia encompasses Palau, Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands and Kiribati: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micronesia Referring to the Federated States of Micronesia as Micronesia is a little like referring to the United States of America as America. It's not so much wrong as it is imprecise. After all, the term Americas applies to North and South America, but in the context of a country name most people would probably assume you're talking about the US. Likewise, if you mention Micronesia in the context of a country name, most people would assume you meant the Federated States of Micronesia. I haven't created a quiz that involves Micronesia yet but when I do I will probably display Federated States of Micronesia as the name of the country and accept that name and Micronesia as valid entries. An argument can be made that FSB would be a good alternative and maybe that can be added as an additional alternative. One further caution about using "Countries of the World" as the last word for style: because the names of the countries appear on a very crowded world map they often appear in abbreviated form. So we have

	tahitiwahini:	Jan 19th, 2011 at 01:04 GMT		0 points
	... UAE and Dem. Rep. of Congo, rather than the fully spelled out names (which we probably would have seen if there had been sufficient space available). If you feel Micronesia should be dropped from this quiz, vote up dwouns comment. If there's sufficient evidence in favor of that proposition I will remove it from the quiz, which is, after all, supposed to represent commonly accepted country name alternatives in Sporcle. In this matter it's less important what I think and more important what the rest of you all think.

	bwouns:	Jan 19th, 2011 at 02:40 GMT		1 point
	I think you make a fair point. I don't necessarily agree with what I'm about to say, but simply as food for thought -- Taiwan can conceivably be included for similar reasons. If Micronesia is referred to as FSM for purposes of disambiguation, Taiwan whose actual name is Republic of China is a similar case. Incidentally, I wonder if the reason ROC is not accepted for Republic of Congo is because of the ambiguity with Taiwan's official name.

	tahitiwahini:	Jan 19th, 2011 at 03:02 GMT		1 point
	@bwouns: I think your right about Rep Congo. At least that's what I remember reading in the comments to some quiz or other. ROC was not used because of potential confusion with the official name of Taiwan. I wouldn't have a lot of grief using PRC and ROC for China and Taiwan, although they're pretty ingrained Sporcle habits by now.

	FreakyFlyBry:	Jan 22nd, 2011 at 17:54 GMT		0 points
	For some reason, I feel FYROM should be on the quiz (it's an often-used abbreviation for Macedonia though I don't know if it's Sporcle-official like the others on here.)

	TheBigE1980:	Feb 3rd, 2011 at 01:34 GMT		1 point
	I would like to start a movement to accept "DR" for Dominican Republic and "BH" for Bosnia & Herzegovina. Although the DR abbreviation would eliminate any cheap gains of "Dominica" when someone is trying to type "Dominican Republic." And I second the motion for "PNG" for "Papua New Guinea."

	tahitiwahini:	Feb 4th, 2011 at 18:02 GMT		1 point
	@TheBigE1980: consider the movement started! I use all the proposed abbreviations in the quizzes I create, especially the sixteen-quiz Border Country Marathon: http://www.sporcle.com/games/tahitiwahini/bordering_medium_countries_1

	confused:	Feb 4th, 2011 at 21:02 GMT		3 points
	Aha. I just commented on your 13/16 quiz, not realizing you were fomenting a movement. ;) So I'll repeat myself here. I don't care about accepting more acronyms, but I really dislike the three short-form "exceptions". First, because I'm old and crotchety, it's untidy to type Saudi for a country called Saudi Arabia - since sporcle is for learning, might as well learn it right. And then I have to wonder, why can't I type Costa for Costa Rica, etc. Second, it's really annoying to long-term users to have leftovers clogging the input field, and there will be a long transition. This is happening now with the USA abbreviation. I have to stop and look at whether the quiz is requiring the A, or leaping ahead without it, and it's annoying. I don't want to have to think about that for more countries; I want to spend my time learning geography, not how Sporcle accepts my answers. There's too big a backlog of quizzes to attempt a reform that will impact them all. New acronyms won't do that, but short forms will.

	tahitiwahini:	Feb 4th, 2011 at 21:37 GMT		1 point
	@confused: I hear what you're saying about the exceptions. I've put all four of them on notice ;-) I agree that the multi-word abbreviations which were created to make it easier for players to enter country names shouldn't end up making it more difficult in certain cases. That's not progress. I'll leave them in for now to gather more comments from players, but I'm persuadable that the four exceptions are a bad idea. I also agree with your point that the name of the country is Saudi Arabia, not Saudi. I would certainly never display Saudi as the name of the country, it's just an abbreviation used for entering it. But I have to admit that it bothers me a bit nonetheless. I don't feel that way about Czech Republic, and there're actually some reasons to prefer Czech (or more correctly Czechia) over the awkward Czech Republic. My preference is for unique acronyms and I think that would be the best system for all multi-word names if it weren't for Sierra Leone, St Lucia, Sri Lanka, and others that make that impossible. Costa Rica and Czech Republic cause the same problem. In the final analysis this was intended to make things easier, not more annoying. Once I figure out what the consensus on that question is I'll take further action. Short forms may be an idea that's best strangled while still in the nursery.

	confused:	Feb 5th, 2011 at 05:40 GMT		5 points
	Just ran across something else to beware of. Played your Desert Countries quiz (nice) and went to enter Saudi Arabia. Before I'd even finished Saudi, up pops South Africa. So even with acronym abbreviations, you have to be aware of giving away answers unintentionally. Bhutan, Croatia, Estonia, Micronesia, Singapore, Slovakia... lots. I don't disagree with your intent - I gratefully use "CAR" or "DRC", especially given my typing skills. But I think caution is good. And, given that a lot of quizzes put you under a time crunch, sporcle-wide consistency is important.

	tahitiwahini:	Feb 5th, 2011 at 13:09 GMT		1 point
	@confused: you're right. Saudi Arabia has a South Africa (SA) problem, just like UKraine has a UK problem. I was already aware of the CRoatia/Costa Rica (CR) problem, but I hadn't thought of the others you mention: Bhutan, Estonia, Micronesia, Singapore, and Slovakia, etc. I will look into the problem more to see how widespread the problem is (it's already more widespread than I originally thought).

	tahitiwahini:	Feb 5th, 2011 at 14:05 GMT		1 point
	OK, after some investigation here is the scope of the problem. Of the 32 acronyms used in the multi-word abbreviation scheme, 10 have ambiguity problems. Here they are: BH (Bosnia and Herzegovina/BHutan), CR (Costa Rica/CRoatia), DR (Dominican Republic/DRC), ES (El Salvador/EStonia), ET (East Timor/EThiopia), MI (Marshall Islands/MIcronesia), SA (South Africa/SAudi Arabia), SI (Solomon Islands/SIngapore), SL (St Lucia/SLovakia/SLovenia), UK (United Kingdom/UKraine). There is a good potential solution for the East Timor/EThiopia problem and that is to change the acronym to TL for Timor-Leste. The UK problem predates the multi-word abbreviation scheme since it's already a commonly accepted Sprocle abbreviation. I might be able to live with the BH problem, because I really don't enjoy having to type Bosnia and Herzegovina, and BH and Bhutan probably don't occur in the same quiz very often so it may not be much of a problem in practice. The only solution I can think of for the other eight problem acronyms is to drop them :( Or restrict their usage to quizzes that require answers in order since for those quizzes there is no ambiguity problem. I'll continue to think about this problem. Thank you, confused, for bringing it to my attention.

	tahitiwahini:	Feb 12th, 2011 at 21:32 GMT		1 point
	Here are the newly revised multi-word abbreviations. The general rule is to form an acronym from the initial letters of the multi-word common Sporcle country name. There are ten exceptions to the general rule: Bosnia, Costa, Czech, Dominican, El, Marshall, Saudi, Sierra, Solomon, and Sri. The exceptions simply use the first word of the multi-word common Sporcle country name: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Marshall Islands, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, and Sri Lanka. Two multi-word country names are not abbreviated because I was unable to devise suitable non-ambiguous abbreviations for them: South Africa and St Lucia.

	tahitiwahini:	Feb 12th, 2011 at 21:37 GMT		1 point
	Here were my goals in creating the abbreviations: 1) reduce the amount of typing necessary, 2) an easily remembered general rule, 3) minimal number of exceptions, 4) no ambiguity. My comments on each of these points follow:

	tahitiwahini:	Feb 12th, 2011 at 22:25 GMT		0 points
	1) Reduce the amount of typing necessary. The multi-word abbreviation scheme reduces the amount of typing required for the 36 multi-word common Sporcle country names by 75%.

You might also like these games:
Answers in Common	Least Common Sporcle Countries	Most Common Sporcle Countries

	tahitiwahini:	Feb 12th, 2011 at 22:36 GMT		0 points
	3) Minimal number of exceptions. There are ten exceptions to the general rule one needs to be aware of. The Republics and Islands account for four of them: Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Marshall Islands, and Solomon Islands. Then there are these six one has to remember: Bosnia, Costa, El, Saudi, Sierra, and Sri. Remember also that there are two additional countries that don't have multi-word abbreviations: South Africa and St Lucia.

	tahitiwahini:	Feb 12th, 2011 at 22:54 GMT		1 point
	4) No ambiguity. Unfortunately, there are two cases of ambiguity in the multi-word abbreviations. The first is an existing problem that had been present in the commonly accepted Sprocle country name abbreviations. That's the UK (for United Kingdom) which conflicts with UKraine. You may have noticed that sometimes in a quiz when you want to type in Ukraine, it instead accepts the Uk as the abbreviation for United Kingdom, potentially leaving "raine" in the buffer. The other ambiguity that has been introduced into the multi-word abbreviations is that SK (for South Korea) can conflict with SKn (for St Kitts and Nevis). The problem would manifest itself when you were trying to enter SKN as an abbreviation for St Kitts and Nevis and the SK is accepted as the abbreviation for South Korea, potentially leaving "N" in the buffer. I think the scope of these problems in fairly limited. For the problem to manifest itself both of the potentially ambiguous countries have to be answers to the same quiz, and the longer answer (Ukraine or SKN) has to occur before the shorter answer (UK or SK). So the actually number of quizzes that would be adversely effected by these ambiguities is pretty small. Finally, even without these abbreviations there exists one ambiguity problem, namely: Dominica and Dominican Republic. If you are trying to enter Dominican Republic and Dominica exists is the answer to another question then potentially it will accept Dominica and leave "n Republic" in the buffer.

	tahitiwahini:	Feb 12th, 2011 at 23:06 GMT		1 point
	Why people might not like the multi-word abbreviations. It requires 75% less typing, what's not to like? Well, if you don't know about the ten exceptions you may find it very annoying that it accepts the first word of the multi-word country as a proper answer. So for instance, if you're trying to enter Czech Republic as an answer to a question, it will take Czech as the answer to the question (good), but potentially leave "Republic" in the buffer (bad). On the other hand, if you know about the ten exceptions: Bosnia, Czech, Costa, El, Marshall, Saudi, Sierra, Solomon, and Sri, you would know to stop typing after entering the first word of the name for these countries. Some people are going to like this shortcut and some are going to find it very annoying. Please let me know if you like or don't like these abbreviations. Some (see confused above) have already let me know how they feel about this. If enough people complain about the first word abbreviations I will remove them from my quizzes.

	diving:	Feb 14th, 2011 at 23:15 GMT		0 points
	I'm not necessarily disagreeing with your abbreviations, but I'd like to propose some additions/substitutions for you to think about: - Using IOC 3-letter country codes (ex. KOR & DPR for the Koreas) or ISO codes - For the Koreas use ROK and DPRK (short for long-form names & don't clash with existing country names) - For China & Taiwan use PROC and ROC since those are fairly well-known/used in various contexts

	tahitiwahini:	Feb 18th, 2011 at 04:25 GMT		1 point
	@diving: Thanks for the comments. I did look into the IOC 3-letter country codes and lots of them are good, but some are not very intuitive, for example: BDI, BIZ, BLR, etc. Even worse are the ISO codes, for example: DZ = Algeria. Huh? ROK and DPRK are OK for the Koreas, but are they really better than SK and NK, which also don't clash with existing country names? As for China and Taiwan, the impetus behind the abbreviations is to save time and effort in typing. PROC for China, and ROC for Taiwan don't offer much in terms of savings. Also ROC (Republic Of China) may be confused with Republic Of (the) Congo. To sum up: the standard 2 and 3 character abbreviation schemes are unique and unambiguous alright, but they're also sometimes unmemorable (at least to me). I don't see myself remembering BIZ is Belize, for instance. The scheme I'm proposing is far from perfect, but at least one of it's good points is the ease of remembering the abbreviations. If I know the general acronym formation rule, and I want to enter Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, I'm pretty confident I can remember (or rather figure out on the fly) that it's SVG. The exceptions to that general rule (South Africa, Sri Lanka, etc.) are definitely it's weak point. If I fail to remember that Sri Lanka is one of the exceptions to the rule, I may try entering SL and be disappointed that it isn't accepted. On the other hand, if I just try to enter Sri Lanka it will be accepted as soon as I finish typing Sri. I realize that is very annoying to some and it's the major reason this scheme is far from perfect.

	tahitiwahini:	Feb 23rd, 2011 at 22:53 GMT		1 point
	I've added SS for Southern Sudan, which if all goes according to plan should become a country on July 9, 2011. Southern Sudan is now a bonus in the Border Country Marathon and will be a territory bonus in the forthcoming Border Country Biathlon. After independence I will upgrade these bonuses to regular answers. Also, I've added Southern Sudan as a subject country to the marathon and biathlon. Congratulations to the southern Sudanese on their new country-to-be!

	tahitiwahini:	Feb 28th, 2011 at 19:57 GMT		0 points
	UPDATE: I've added multi-word abbreviations for oceans and seas, primarily for use in the Border Country Biathlon (http://www.sporcle.com/games/tahitiwahini/border_country_biathlon_1_of_16). These abbreviations cover all the oceans used in the Border Country Biathlon, but only the five most referenced seas: IO (Indian Ocean), NAO (North Atlantic Ocean), NPO (North Pacific Ocean), SAO (South Atlantic Ocean), SPO (South Pacific Ocean), CS (Caribbean Sea), ECS (East China Sea), MS (Mediterranean Sea), PS (Philippine Sea), and SCS (South China Sea).

	oldkent:	Mar 5th, 2011 at 03:57 GMT		2 points
	I'm not sure what you're going for here, and I'm not sure how exactly you aim to achieve whatever this is. Your new 'movement', I believe, is contradicting everything that Sporcle is about. I mean, first of all, the Sporcle creators do everything for a reason. Like mentioned before, there's the big clash, Saudi Arabia/South Africa for example, and it doesn't seem reasonable to put in all these exceptions to your 'rules' and expect everyone to remember them. I also agree with Confused here, it doesn't seem right to accept 'Saudi', I fail to see the difference between this, and accepting 'United' for example, for the US, it's not proper, and could even border on insulting to those Saudi Arabians. The way things are is perfect already, nothing needs changing, and I think that the old way, we're learning, challenging our spelling abilities, and it's the way that Sporcle has survived for 4 years. Although I am very open to change, I don't think this is the area that change is necessary.

	tahitiwahini:	Mar 5th, 2011 at 21:26 GMT		1 point
	@oldkent: Thanks for the feedback. I've put you down as someone who's not in favor of these abbreviations ;-) Let's see if I can address some of your comments. Though if you don't understand what I'm trying to achieve after reading through all the comments on this quiz than I don't know what else to say. If this contradicts everything that Sporcle is about, then shouldn't we immediately stop accepting US, UK, DRC, and CAR? And accepting "St Vincent" for St Vincent and the Grenadines, doesn't that border on insulting to those who happen to live on one of the Grenadines and not on St Vincent? Those aren't my abbreviations, they're abbreviations used by the Sporcle creators who as you pointed out "do everything for a reason." My goodness, how in the world is using Saudi as an abbreviation in a Sporcle quiz for Saudi Arabia an insult to Saudi Arabians? There's certainly a lot of insulting going on that I was completely unaware of: every time someone interviews the Saudi ambassador to ask about the prospects of increasing Saudi oil exports the poor ambassador has been doubly insulted. From now on I hope we will only see someone interview the Saudi Arabian ambassador to ask about the prospects of increasing Saudi Arabian oil exports, these insults have got to stop! It seems to me that confused's point was that he didn't like the fact that if he typed Saudi Arabia, it would accept Saudi leaving Arabia to be removed from the buffer. It's a fair point, it's a definite drawback to that part of the abbreviation scheme.