> King Kam, as he is affectionately know to the tourists, probably never called them the Sandwich Islands. That name came from an Englishman who was more famous for eating meat held between to hunks of bread. Was it Captain Cook who honored the Earl of Sandwich by naming the Hawaiian Islands for him? The Hawaiian didn't really like Cook. Maybe they killed him for renaming their islands. Did you know that the Hawaiian royal palace in Honolulu is the only royal palace in the United States? If you think the United States wasn't nice to the native peoples of North America, look up the story of how we took over the nation of Hawaii. It makes you wonder why the people there are so friendly.

Yes, I know that that isn't the proper Polynesian name for the islands, but my Polynesian is a little rusty at the moment, and I just wanted to make the point that prior to the American invasion, the term "Hawaii" only applied to a single island.

I believe (though, as ever, I may very well be wrong) that the term "The Sandwich Islands" is still appropriate if you are in a geographical context rather than a geopolitical one. It's the kind of thing you tend to pick up once you learn when the terms "Britain", "Great Britain", "The British Isles" and "The United Kingdom" apply.

Oh, and I thought I was being tactful by not mentioning the atrocities that were commited by the Americans in their conquest of The Sandwich Islands.

winter"I can't think of anything apropriate to go here"mute