Some Place Names -- some historical interest

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I am an avid reader of Melanie and Mike's "Take our Word for it" webzine, which is published (almost) weekly. Since Melanie is Texan, and Mike is Welsh, they take a sometimes stale subject and make it quite humorous and exciting. This week, they focused on place names, and I saw quite of bit of interest to us historical folks...

Page One (Place Names)

[NOTE: this link will only work this week. After this you will need to go to the archives for this week.]

An excerpt:

We confess that we have one or two favorites among this strange collection. One of these is Trapezuntine, a native of Trebizond. [So, if Byzantine means "of Byzantium", and Trapezuntine means "of Trapezuntium", does turpentine mean of Turpentium? - Mike] [ You know very well that it doesn't, and stop interrupting! - Melanie]. And what a shame they changed the name of an island off the coast of Australia to Tasmania. When it was called Van Diemen's Land the inhabitants were Vandemonians.

O.

 

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More humor...


There's a small city in upstate New York called Coxsackie, whould the natives be called "Coxsackers"?

There is a real island of Lesbos, though I don't know if the women look like the women in films like "No Men Allowed Volume 12"...

Are the natives of Tampa, Florida called "Tampons?"

I grew up in New Hampshire, a small state in New England with a distaste for our southern neighbors, so we always called the state south of us "Mass-a-two-shits" and the residents therof "Massholes"...

 

[Dexmach]

There is a real island of Lesbos, though I don't know if the women look like the women in films like "No Men Allowed Volume 12"...

FYI (if you didn't already know)Lesbian is derived from Lesbos.

The female poet Sappho (born 612 B.C.) lived in Lesbos where she wrote love-poems to other women. Only fragments of her works have survived.

Now to get back on topic.
Oh dang. I can't think of any...

 

[Styrbiorn]

Funny, but I'm surprised they didn't mention Hamburgers.


I could mention a few such names too, but it wouldn't be intersting as a non-Swedish speaker wouldn't understand it anyway...

 

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I would be interested in Swedish jokes anyway, with an attempt to explain them (maybe I'm a glutton for punishment).

The famed comedian Eddie Izzard once mentioned that Kennedy, after making the famed "I am a jellied doughnut" comment, should have toured Germany afterwards..."I am a Frankfurter", "I am a Hamburger."



O.

 

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Originally posted by jayron32
More humor...
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There is a real island of Lesbos, though I don't know if the women look like the women in films like "No Men Allowed Volume 12"...

Sadly, no. I went there specifically to see if they did.

 

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you got it all