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Web Carniola

November 2006
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Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Few Clouds Temperature: 1°C Clouds: Few Clouds

Maribor, Slovenia.
Cloud and Visibility OK Temperature: -1°C Clouds: Cloud and Visibility OK

Portoroz, Slovenia.
Cloud and Visibility OK Temperature: 9°C Clouds: Cloud and Visibility OK

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The Slovenia/Sierra Leone Mix-Up

slovenia-sierra-leone-copy.jpg
Good Lord, it really happened. (source)

Well, folks, here it is. Anouk, a leading member of Englistika and a recovering Dutchoholic, has stumbled upon the Holy Grail of mix-ups: a Dutch site that thinks Slovenia is Sierra Leone.

I don’t think this can be topped. I’m kind of impressed, in a way.

Presumably the problem was caused by similar country codes: Sierra Leone is SL, Slovenia is SI.

(Thanks to Anouk and Grega at Englistika!)

Posted on Tuesday, November 28, 2006 to The Eternal Slovenia/Slovakia Mix-Up

Comments

  • 1

    Once I got a letter from Norway … after two months. It arrived via Sierra Leone …

         by Matej on November 28, 2006 at 7:34 am

  • 2

    I remember hearing somewhere that when Slovenia first became its own country, they had the car ID stickers printed up with SL on them, only to learn that that code was already taken.

    Also– to this day the stickers exist in two flavas: SLO and SI; what’s up with that?

         by sgazzetti on November 28, 2006 at 7:41 am

  • 3

    You have different codes:
    UN 2 letters Slovenia = SI
    UN 3 letters Slovenia = SVN
    Currency 3 letters tolar = SIT (SI + T(olar))
    Currency 3 digits tolar = 705 (I hope I remeber it right)
    Int . Automobil club Slovenia = SLO
    (Germany = D, Austria = A …)
    And there are some more …. Int. Olym. Comitee

         by Davor on November 28, 2006 at 9:10 am

  • 4

    Hahahaha, good one. But it’s fitting in a way… Every day this country looks like a province of Bantustan. The prime minister is like the big “bwana” dancing around bonfires and the while the president looks more like the village wizard, warning of the impending disaster, eating strange herbs and searching for the meaning of life. As for the rest of us… It’s back to our hunter-gatherer reflexes ;)

         by pengovsky on November 28, 2006 at 9:37 am

  • 5

    This happens to me all the time. I think I got at least five hotel bills where my country was Sierra Leone. And two times Solomon Islands. We definitely are a banana republic :).

         by Bor on November 28, 2006 at 9:45 am

  • 6

    Wow, that’s a lot of seaside we could have… Now, if we all just join together and drive THEM out and settle there?

         by alcessa on November 28, 2006 at 10:19 am

  • 7

    This was low!

         by -scriptor- on November 28, 2006 at 10:20 am

  • 8

    I’ve had my post redirected through Sierra Leone as well (and it took 6 months to get from England to Slovenia) … so it seems it’s not *that* uncommon a mixup. :D

         by Alex on November 28, 2006 at 10:25 am

  • 9

    @alcessa: Yeah, and then we could have Joško Joras defend the border between Sierra Leone and Liberia, while smuggling washing machines (or perhaps spare parts for Toyota pick-ups) across the border ;)

         by pengovsky on November 28, 2006 at 11:09 am

  • 10

    BTW, check Croatia (Kroatië) and
    die laughing:

    tinyurl.com/y9o3q9

    It seems they messed up most (all?) maps.

         by Grega on November 28, 2006 at 11:18 am

  • 11

    I can’t believe it: they are using the same map (Sierra Leone) for Slowakia!

         by alcessa on November 28, 2006 at 11:28 am

  • 12

    ROTFL!!!! I don’t speak Flemmish, but I thing “Engeland” is “England” and not “Estonia” :))

         by pengovsky on November 28, 2006 at 11:53 am

  • 13

    Croatia is comedy gold. This whole site is a catastrophe.

    Australia: You can probably guess what’s coming.

    Austria: You will never ever guess what’s coming.

         by Michael M. on November 28, 2006 at 11:58 am

  • 14

    Funny. Just one of these days I installed new version of Real Player, and I had to fill in the form. They offered me Slovenian language and Sierra Leone for my country of residence, as a default. It has to do something with ISO 3166 country codes vs. ISO 639 language codes mixup.

         by historix on November 28, 2006 at 12:05 pm

  • 15

    Talking about codes, SL is a two-letter international language code for Slovenian, while a three-letter code is SLV …

    www.w3.org/WAI/ER/IG/ert/iso639.htm

         by ervinator on November 28, 2006 at 12:14 pm

  • 16

    @Pengovsky : The Dutch speak Dutch, not Flemish. They live north of us and we live separated for a reason, as you can see :P. Another ‘Holland’ joke to add to the ever growing list we’ve got going down here, thanks Michael! ;)

         by ARF on November 28, 2006 at 12:16 pm

  • 17

    Ha ha ha, the polar caps are melting in Austria!

         by alcessa on November 28, 2006 at 12:26 pm

  • 18

    Singapore looks very familiar :-)

         by Igor on November 28, 2006 at 1:02 pm

  • 19

    Not that they are very familiar with what the Netherlands look like.

    Due to the incorrect use of country codes (I think they the webmaster just used the first 2 letters of the Dutch name of the country…), out of 77 places, 24 maps are correct, 45 wrong, and 8 are missing.

         by Igor on November 28, 2006 at 1:35 pm

  • 20

    Want to find Slovenia?
    Look under “Singapore”…

         by Regakvak on November 28, 2006 at 1:43 pm

  • 21

    Well, that infamous American disease, Geography Ignorance, seems to have spread back to the Old Country. We’ll have to adjust Dubya’s “No Child Left Behind” to “No COuntry LEft Behind”.
    To the Dutch, Welcome to our Ignorance.

         by DarkoV on November 28, 2006 at 1:57 pm

  • 22

    Remembering the bad blood between the USA and Venezuela, I think you all should definitely check how the USA map looks like on this site.

         by Regakvak on November 28, 2006 at 2:00 pm

  • 23

    Ich würde sagen die verdienen den “Wir sind die Oberhorsts” - Award. Sehr lustig!

         by Christian on November 28, 2006 at 3:30 pm

  • 24

    … I’m glad it’s just a site from the netherlands and not germany

         by Christian on November 28, 2006 at 3:31 pm

  • 25

    @ARF: Sorry, I stand corrected!

         by pengovsky on November 28, 2006 at 4:26 pm

  • 26

    Clearly there’s a good reason why all these URLs end in ‘bs’…

         by ill-advised on November 28, 2006 at 8:47 pm

  • 27

    damn they aren’t even AMERICANS they CAN’T be so bad at geography! That’s just bad and wrong!

         by Katja on November 29, 2006 at 5:34 am

  • 28

    I said, I’m glad it was no German. I was glad until I heard about this from my wife. Read Uvodnik: “Dobrodošli v Sierri Leone”. (Must be Page 2)

         by Christian on December 17, 2006 at 10:26 pm

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