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Angry Salami posted:Australia has the city of Townsville. It's not technically a tautology, being named after its founder, Robert Towns, but it doesn't stop it sounding stupid. As far as anyone knows the Powerpuff Girls do not live there. There's also a place called Mount Hill. Also a suburb of Melbourne called Batman. BrigadierSensible posted:In unimaginative naming: So that's where Dragon Ball got it from!
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# ? May 17, 2022 13:45 |
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# ? Jun 5, 2024 04:40 |
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Goths Geats. Tomato Tomatoe
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# ? May 17, 2022 13:48 |
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There's a Batman in turkish Kurdistan too.
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# ? May 17, 2022 13:51 |
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Angry Salami posted:Australia has the city of Townsville. It's not technically a tautology, being named after its founder, Robert Towns, but it doesn't stop it sounding stupid. Melbourne, Australia could have been called Batmania if one of the financial backers, John Batman, had had his way. There was, however, an electoral division called Batman from 1906-2019, so I'm fairly sure that somewhere in the parlimentary record there occur the words "The speaker recognises the Honorable Member for Batman". It was renamed to Cooper in 2019 after Aboriginal community leader and activist William Cooper, which is a definite upgrade considering that Batman: * Was so bad at stealing land that the Governer of a british colony said his treaty with the then-residents was invalid [1] * Died at age 38 from complications of syphilis * Was broke when he died. * Saddled the city with the lamest motto ever - "Here is the place to build a village". fake edits: Batman is not a suburb, but there is a railway station called Batman, which serves the suburb of Coburg North. There is also a post office called Batman, and it has it's own postcode (zip), but that's only for PO Boxes as far as I can tell because the address for the actual post office is in Coburg North, right next to Fawkner, a suburb named after Batman's more successful rival. John Batman is actually buried in Fawkner cemetary, which is some kind of schadenfreude. [1]You don't have to give it to the guvnah: "Batman's treaty was almost immediately declared invalid by the Proclamation of Governor Bourke of New South Wales. On 6 August 1835, he declared the British Crown owned the entire land of Australia, and that only it could sell or distribute land."
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# ? May 17, 2022 14:29 |
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FreudianSlippers posted:Goths Geats. The connection between the goths (as in the gothic tribes) and the götar (people from Götaland, the collection of kingdoms that joined with Svealand to form Sweden) is pretty loving tenuous. Attempts have been made to equate the two, and also with the goths and Gotland (the island in the baltic sea) during the national romantic period in the 19th century, because to swedish national romantics being the motherfuckers who absolutely wrecked the roman empire seemed pretty baller.
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# ? May 17, 2022 14:44 |
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hello yes i play götar
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# ? May 17, 2022 16:47 |
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Fantasy author Steven Brust had a bit in one of his novels that parodied Torpenhow Hill with Bengloarafurd Ford (NB the below is written by an in-universe author, who is incredibly pompous and paid by the word):quote:The Serioli, who departed the area to avoid any of the unfortunate incidents that war can produce, left only the name for the place, which was “Ben,” meaning “ford” in their language. The Easterners called the place “Ben Ford,” or, in the Eastern tongue, “Ben gazlo.”
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# ? May 17, 2022 18:11 |
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Also a suburb of Melbourne called Batman. There's a village in the Netherlands called Bathmen.
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# ? May 17, 2022 18:25 |
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There's a river in Iceland called Brúará or Bridge River, because of a natural stone arch that used to cross it in one spot, the modern bridge over the river is called Brúarábrú or Bridge River Bridge.
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# ? May 17, 2022 19:13 |
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For everyone enjoying name etymology chat, allow me to recommend Names On the Land by George Stewart. It is a history of the giving of place names in the United States, starting from the earliest European exploration and going up through the 1940s, when the book was written. It is cleverly written and deals with the politics and changing fads behind naming.
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# ? May 18, 2022 03:55 |
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thepopmonster posted:* Was so bad at stealing land that the Governer of a british colony said his treaty with the then-residents was invalid this is, frankly, impressive
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# ? May 18, 2022 04:25 |
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Fantasy author Steven Brust had a bit in one of his novels that parodied Torpenhow Hill with Bengloarafurd Ford (NB the below is written by an in-universe author, who is incredibly pompous and paid by the word): “Rufford Ford” makes me furious. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUYfTrXHK4U
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# ? May 18, 2022 06:40 |
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This is not a "fun" fact, but I'm reading Max Hastings' 'Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy'. In that he quotes from 'The Sorrow of War', a historical novel by Vietnamese author Bao Ninh, who served in the Glorious 27th Youth Brigade during the war. It gave me chills:Bao Ninh posted:Kien knows the area well. It was here, at the end of the dry season of 1969, that his Battalion 27 was surrounded and almost totally wiped out. Ten men survived from the Unlucky Battalion, after fierce, horrible, barbarous fighting.
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# ? May 18, 2022 20:24 |
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Ellie Trashcakes posted:It certainly doesn't mean "landing strips for gay Martians" You know what, Ellie, I like you. You're not like the other people here, in the trailer park.
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# ? May 18, 2022 20:34 |
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Imagined posted:This is not a "fun" fact, but I'm reading Max Hastings' 'Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy'. In that he quotes from 'The Sorrow of War', a historical novel by Vietnamese author Bao Ninh, who served in the Glorious 27th Youth Brigade during the war. It gave me chills: And when the crying dead pass us by, Will you let them be Or their tears dry? Will you comfort them before the last goodbye
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# ? May 18, 2022 20:53 |
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Porto is otherwise a pretty unimaginitive name for a city although was originally longer (Portus Cale =port of the galicians i think). The Douro river that has its mouth in Porto is supposedly named after celtic word for "water". Cartagena in Spain has a couple of redundancies too, from Cartago Nova/New Carthage. Carthage itself means something like "New City". Falukorv has a new favorite as of 03:57 on May 21, 2022 |
# ? May 21, 2022 03:53 |
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If you are doing silly Australian names, you cannot skip this one, population 3; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tittybong,_Victoria
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# ? May 21, 2022 17:01 |
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lol "Victoria"
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# ? May 21, 2022 21:09 |
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Carbon dioxide posted:There's a village in the Netherlands called Bathmen. Any Turkish folks happen to live there?
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# ? May 21, 2022 21:45 |
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normal colonization: ah yes, prince fucko's land, sainted land of saint problematic, uh this one can be named after a dutch merchant, this next bit we'll bastardize off a local name or invent one australia colonization: er, north, south, west, the queen, the queen again, Wales! No, no, south Wales
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# ? May 21, 2022 22:24 |
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:normal colonization: ah yes, prince fucko's land, sainted land of saint problematic, uh this one can be named after a dutch merchant, this next bit we'll bastardize off a local name or invent one They did squeeze in one dutch merchant name, for old time's sake
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# ? May 22, 2022 05:55 |
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Plus the previous list aptly described everything else named in australia
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# ? May 22, 2022 13:18 |
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYQb3FtJfm0
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# ? May 22, 2022 13:40 |
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Got nothing on the strip of the Mississippi basin/midwest that is Egypt but pronounced wrong.
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# ? May 22, 2022 13:51 |
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zedprime posted:Got nothing on the strip of the Mississippi basin/midwest that is Egypt but pronounced wrong. you mean it's not supposed to be pronounced Care-Oh?
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# ? May 24, 2022 21:39 |
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Is that the area referenced in American Gods?
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# ? May 24, 2022 21:43 |
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zedprime posted:Got nothing on the strip of the Mississippi basin/midwest that is Egypt but pronounced wrong. There's a proud American tradition of naming things the same as other countries but pronouncing them wrong. Versailles, for example.
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# ? May 24, 2022 23:09 |
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There's a Milan in Michigan pronounced "Mai-lan".
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# ? May 24, 2022 23:21 |
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Brawnfire posted:Is that the area referenced in American Gods? The very same. It's up the river from memphis!
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# ? May 24, 2022 23:34 |
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the mississippi is the nile of america and thus we have named its cities after the great cities of egypt such as Memphis, Cairo, and Caruthersville
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# ? May 24, 2022 23:45 |
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American Gods introduced me to the House on the Rock, which is the best road trip spot I've ever been to. A truly mindboggling collection of collections
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# ? May 24, 2022 23:54 |
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There's also a thebes that's just upriver from Cairo
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# ? May 25, 2022 00:15 |
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Soul Dentist posted:American Gods introduced me to the House on the Rock, which is the best road trip spot I've ever been to. A truly mindboggling collection of collections I've desired to go there so badly since I read that book. It sounds like a real head trip.
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# ? May 25, 2022 00:20 |
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Brawnfire posted:I've desired to go there so badly since I read that book. It sounds like a real head trip. Saaaame. I try to reùind myself there's no way it could be as crazy as the book, but it doesn't help.
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# ? May 25, 2022 00:24 |
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The book actually doesn't do it justice. To just walk through it takes hours. I cannot overstate how cool it is!
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# ? May 25, 2022 00:35 |
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Milo and POTUS posted:There's also a thebes that's just upriver from Cairo There's a Port Athur here. Everyone calls it Portsa for short. (It's not near the port. There's no Arthur.)
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# ? May 25, 2022 00:52 |
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Slightly less weird than Nyu-York, Donyetskaya Oblast (previously renamed Novgorodskoye and the inhabitants voted that no, they liked being New York)
Edgar Allen Ho has a new favorite as of 01:12 on May 25, 2022 |
# ? May 25, 2022 01:10 |
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:Saaaame. I try to reùind myself there's no way it could be as crazy as the book, but it doesn't help. Out of curiosity, how did you make this typo?
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# ? May 25, 2022 02:58 |
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M and ù on french azerty are where ; and ' are on an anglo qwerty keyboard That plus cubital tunnel.
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# ? May 25, 2022 03:14 |
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# ? Jun 5, 2024 04:40 |
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:M and ù on french azerty are where ; and ' are on an anglo qwerty keyboard I'll allow it.
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# ? May 25, 2022 11:32 |