Same But Different

The world never ceases to amaze me. International technology designers have come together to agree on the shape and size of USB ports. The computer companies agree the manufacturers of external gadgetry agree, everyone agrees. They are all the same.

Their also appears to an international agreement about the size and shape of batteries. Whilst the agreement is inclusive of a wide range of battery sizes and differences in the amount of power they contain, there is still universal acceptance of these differences.

Airlines have also managed to agree on the size and shape of boarding passes and the basic information they must contain. A Qantas boarding pass fits into the scanning system for FinAir.

Visa, I would never leave home without it because again amazingly it works in every country, even countries that have a GDP lower than my personal credit limit.

Coke can get its brand, packaging and flavour the same all around the world. The consistency of MacDonalds although slightly alarming is also reassuring. When in a country where it is important to learn the word “testicle” just in case it appears on a menu it is comforting to know that $10 of fat and sugar is in the shape of a burger and fries. Supersized of course.

What amazes me most though is that despite all of this consistency we cannot agree on electrical sockets. I carried three different adaptors on my recent holiday, only to discover I was one short. How hard can it be to agree on the number and shape of a few holes in the wall.

While I am on the subject it was most disconcerting to discover “Vienna” is really spelt “Wien”. When did the English speaking world decide that Austrians were not clever enough to either spell or pronounce the name of their capital correctly? Who are we to decide that what the name really needed was an extra n and a? And who is to say that we have these letters spare that we can be giving them away so freely?

Surely if it is “Wien” then that is what the whole world should call it? There are plenty of other cities that suffer this same challenge. I do not mean mispronunciations like Americanised “MelbORne” or “UStralia” I mean changing the name to something similar but completely different.

Also why do Europeans change their computer keyboards, swapping the positions of the “z” and the “y”? Perhaps they are just getting us back for the whole Vienna/Wien debarcle.

Oh the humaitz!