Look, this isn't difficult and I'm sorry you seem to have trouble understanding. The government of Ukraine requested that their country be referred to as Ukraine, not The Ukraine. Yes, the person who made reference to the Ukraine was not a native English speaker, and an apology was made by the member who made that assumption. That's not the problem. The problem is you and others excusing the improper reference with the justification that it it is 'very normal' and that 'lots of people say it'. History is replete with examples of such justifications. Segregation, enslavement and genocide were considered 'normal' by many.Gosh, what an unpleasant diatribe. Your immediate resort to personal insult is very telling - it's as sure a measure as one will ever find that someone has no valid argument. Suffice it to say that when it comes to both the subject of the history of that part of the world and certainly when it comes to linguistics, the ignorance is yours.
You might not like it, but history and languages are complex subjects. Generally speaking the native speaker should be afforded the right to speak his native tongue as he sees fit. To call the Ukraine, the Ukraine is perfectly valid English, in the same way you'll find many old Bombay families who are English speakers or from the Parsi community in Bombay won't call the city Mumbai when speaking their own language, even when Hindu right-wing thugs threaten them they (justifiably) refuse to change, or you'll find some people in various parts of China legitimately use the name Peking when writing English.
Combined with the right of the native speaker to speak his own language of course there is a desire to not offend and to try to reach compromise. But someone came on here and immediately and unfairly criticised another for saying the Ukraine. I thought it impolite, especially as said person wasn't a native speaker. The English language is hard to pin down, it takes many forms - this is actually a great strength. That there is no central committee who gets to dictate what word we use for this or that is a welcome reality.
If an individual expresses a preference for others to use a particular personal pronoun, someone who chooses to use a different pronoun to refer to that individual is being disrespectful. Same goes for Ukraine.
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