It’s still Bangkok: Thailand quells talk of name change

It started when the Cabinet on Tuesday approved a Royal Society proposal changing the way the capital would be referred to internationally from “Krung Thep Maha Nakhon; Bangkok” to “Krung Thep Maha Nakhon (Bangkok).”

As people sought to divine the meaning behind changing the semicolon to parentheses, many put great weight to the accompanying explanation that it would “revise” the name of the capital city and keep the “former” name in brackets.

The capital is already officially known in the Thai language as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon, which literally means “great city of angels,” and most Thais shorten it to just Krung Thep in conversation.

As speculation grew, the Royal Society on Wednesday clarified in a Facebook post that their new guidance was simply a stylistic change.

“Writing the capital city’s official name with the Roman…