Before reading this article, I used to think that the term “Third World Country” means something about the rateof development; however, this is just a rough generalization and misconception. As language-lovers and translators, we should pay extra attention to such sensitive issues. We can offend the reader or even get very negative reactions. We should use more general and “rounded” terms instead of certain expressions when the issue is controversial.
Here is the article explaining what “Third World Country” means. I hope it is informative! Thanks DAVEN HISKEY for this precious information.
“Today I found out a “Third World” country is not a country that simply is primitive, underdeveloped, or poor, as most people think. In fact, a third world country is actually just a country that is not considered a capitalist country (first world) and not considered a communist country (2nd world).
This terminology was originally coined just after WWII with the “first world” countries being roughly all the countries that were aligned with the United States after WWII with more or less common political and economic structure (capitalists); the “second world” countries were all those that roughly aligned with the Soviet Union in terms of their political and economic structure (communists and socialists); the “third world” countries were just everybody else.
This “everybody else” meaning included an awful lot of countries that were underdeveloped or poor. Through time, this has given rise to the misconception that “third world” means only countries that are underdeveloped and poor, even though there were, and still are, many countries in this group that are very well developed and a few of them are among the wealthiest nations in the world.”
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