It was only with the reports of the appalling fire in Calcutta that I noticed that BBC radio news readers were pronouncing the name of the city as if it were spelled more like Culcutta.
The information on the web does not make it clear when this change was adopted – one site suggests 2001. Did I fail to notice because Calcutta does not often make it on to the domestic news bulletins?
The official variant adopted by the current BBC news website is actually spelled Kolkata, just to add to the confusion.
