What’s Next, Renaming Planet Earth?
play both sides: to let two groups who are against each other both think you support them, usually to help yourself
On August 27, President Trump signed an order renaming Lake Ontario. He declared the lake would now be called Lake America. It sits on the border between New York and the Canadian province of Ontario and has had the same name for over 400 years.
The new name was an escalation of the trade war between the United States and Canada. Online, the response was mockery. One Facebook user joked that Trump would next rename Earth as “Planet America.”
The map companies could not treat it as a joke. They had to decide what to do.
Google moved first, switching the label on their map, but only for some users. Americans see Lake America. Canadians still see Lake Ontario. Everyone else sees both names together. Google played both sides. The company had done exactly this before, when Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
Apple said nothing for a few days. Then Apple Maps followed. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said that Trump had contacted Apple directly to ask.
Nobody had asked Indigenous leaders anything. The word “Ontario” comes from an Indigenous language, and it means something close to “beautiful lake.” Billy Friend, chairman of the Wyandotte Nation, said his objection wasn’t political. “It’s about respecting an Indigenous name,” he said.
MapQuest made the shortest statement of all. The company posted four words online: “We’re not changing it.”
MapQuest started thirty years ago, when the internet was in its infancy. Many people had forgotten it still existed until the Lake Ontario name controversy put the company back in the news. By early September, MapQuest was the number one free app in the app store.
Sample sentences
She told the union she supported the strike and told her manager the opposite, so she was clearly playing both sides.
I stopped trusting him once I realized he had been playing both sides for months.
He played both sides for two years, and it worked until the two families finally sat down together.
Read More
Tribal leaders call Trump’s move to rename Lake Ontario a slap in the face
MapQuest’s app surges to No. 1 in Navigation after refusing to rename Lake Ontario
Apple changes name of Lake Ontario to Lake America in maps app
