American county names

The other influence on dropping the second "c" in Connecticut is the natural tendency to even out any "stops" in the flow of speech.

<<I should've thrown in a smiley, for good measure. Oh, well.>>

Oh Deborah...now I realise it was a joke! :-)


I don't think for one single moment that American placenames are boring! Far from it! Just look through a map of the USA and see all the funny names.....funny as in amusing. Right now I can't remember any! Now I really do feel stupid! I can think of Kalamzoo, Hackensack,.....help! Lost the plot now....without an atlas I can't think of any more.

Anyway, England especially is pretty good for funny place names....thousands of them! Six Mile Bottom near Cambridge comes to mind. Also a place called Pratts Bottom, near London. In the UK a "prat" is a word for a stupid person, an idiot. Like I was a prat not getting Deborah's meaning!

But (no pun intended, in light of the rest of this post), Damian, did you know "prat" originally meant "buttocks" in criminals' slang? I learned that when I looked up "pratfall" in the online etymology dictionary.

...the url for which is http://www.etymonline.com/.

http://www.hairyeyeball.net/jotbook/archives/001013.html

Look at the New Zealander place names after the American ones, made into song lyrics.

Deborah:

You are one very interesting lady...thanks for that link.

I had no idea about the original meaning of "prat"! I've now looked the word up in Collins ED and lo and behold!...the derivation of the word is given as such: [buttocks, of unknown origin]. It's current meaning is given as: (Slang) - an incompetent or ineffectual person: often used as a term of abuse. It's used quite widely here...not always in a vituperative way. You can say "Don't be such a prat" or "You are such a prat" without malice or without being offensive, and not being taken as such.

Talking of the "buttocks" connection..the Bottom bit in all those English place names has got nothing whatsoever to do with any part of the anatomy. Bottom in place names means a tract of countryside that is in a hollow, a small valley, dip or depression at the bottom of a hill. Plenty of those around..especially noticeable in areas like Cambridge because it's mostly table top flat in East Anglia and you can see a molehill on the horizon! The nearby Fens are actually land reclaimed from the sea (like parts of neighbouring Netherlands) and protected by dykes and seawalls.

Thanks Jona.....glad to see Kalamazoo is on the list.

My favorite place name in the US is the name of a town: Humptulips, Washington. I really would like to know the origin of that name.

Damian, when I was 8-10 years old I had a good friend from England. I was surprised by some of the names they would call each other in an inoffensive, even affectionate way. The way her father called her "idiot child," and the way she responded to it, made it sound like a pet name. Is this a typically British habit?

"they" in my post above = the members of her family

Deborah:

<<Is this a typically British habit?>>

I guess it is really. You somehow know instinctively when a perceived insult is in fact meant affectionately or at least in a friendly way. Of course it depends how well the people concerned know each other but generally it would be much easier to call another British person a prat or an idiot and not be seen as offensive than would be the case if I, for instance, called an American a prat or an idiot! No doubt I would have my lights punched out, no messing!

From what I've read, I believe that many Americans find this difficult to understand when they are over here...in other words they take offence at a statement when in fact it was really a compliment! Maybe it's related to the different ways we look at humour.

The British have always been self deprecatory for instance, the ability to laugh at ourselves, something Americans generally may find a wee bit difficult to do. It'd be like walking on eggshells!

>>The British have always been self deprecatory for instance, the ability to laugh at ourselves, something Americans generally may find a wee bit difficult to do.<<

Au contraire! We've always found it easy to laugh at the British.

Deborah:

Humptulips? LOL maybe the settlers there came from the Netherlands.

The Cotswolds are a range of hills in SW England and very picturesque...sleepy wee villages nestling in little valleys with rose covered cottages and old fashioned country inns and all that stuff...but with really weird names. Like Lower Slaughter...can you imagine a peaceful looking village with a name like that? I've no idea of the origin of that name, but it conjures up some horrible massacre there way back in time!

Just outside the spa city of Bath (again in SW England) there's another such cute village...called Pennsylvania! That always amuses American tourists apparently when they see the village sign! They think they have strayed off course a wee bit in their itinerary.

LOL...Deborah...maybe a slight misunderstanding here...I really meant the American ability to laugh at THEMSELVES! :-)

It's a fact that many British comics/comedians came from Liverpool. It's said that the reason for this is that of necessity you NEED a sense of humour to live in Liverpool in the first place! Apologies to all Scousers, but that's just waht the comics themselves say!

>>Humptulips? LOL maybe the settlers there came from the Netherlands.<<

Hmm...remind me to ask Sander about some of the lesser known Dutch customs.

I really have to start using smileys.