BS: Silliest Name for a City....

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: Slag
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 02:50 AM

So far, a great thread! LH, was the a "C" or a "G" in the road name?
In Central California is a farming community named Los Banos, Spanish for "The Toilets". Depending on how long you've been driving, that may or may not be silly.

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: GUEST,Bruce Michael Baillie
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 01:46 AM

...MIANUS obviously!

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: JennieG
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 09:33 PM

A few more Ozzie double names:

Bong Bong (as in my grandfather's clock)
Mitta Mitta
Grong Grong (sounds like a highly susceptible part of the body to me.....Oh Doctorrrrrr, can ye tell me what's wrong wi' ma grong grong?)

More as my lurgy-befuddled brain comes up with them.

Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: Geordie-Peorgie
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 07:29 PM

Sorry Rusty Dobro - It's this bleedin' laptop! It cannit spell for tofu!

You're reet - It IS Loose in Kent, not Luce! - Aah've still not gorra gig there though!

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: MaineDog
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 03:15 PM

I recently saw a boat that claimed to be from East Dogdish Maine (sounds ok to me, but I don't know where it is --) .

In that part of New York, "kill" means "brook", so maybe the fish are ok.
MD

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: terrier
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 02:58 PM

Cholmondely, in leafy Cheshire,UK is prounced by the locals Chumley.

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: Stringsinger
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 11:02 AM

Turkey, North Carolina

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: Leadfingers
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 10:05 AM

And thats another 100 !!

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: Leadfingers
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 10:04 AM

Woolfardisworthy , North Devon UK , has a place name with (In Brackets) Pronounced Woolsey !!

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 09:34 AM

That reminds me...east of Toronto there is an exit off the main highway that goes to "Cobbledick Road". I've never turned off to see what is there.

And then up by Blind River is the famous "Seldom Seen Road". I've never seen it either. Shane and his buddies go up there to engage in various illegal and sureptitious acts.

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: Rusty Dobro
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 07:39 AM

Just for info (because it's neither silly nor vulgar), longest village name in England is All Saints and St Nicholas South Elmham, in Suffolk. (Oh, and that should have been Loose, Kent, a few postings back.)

Don't trust names, though - I once went to live near Gobblecock Hall in the hopes that it would be a good omen that would last me through life. Like I say, don't trust names.

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 02:28 AM

I was told that Sequim, Washington was considered a "Californicator Detector" for a time not too long ago. Mispronounce it, and you might not get served in some taps/bars (without someone to vouch for you).

The locals pronounce it "Skwim."

I think they selected it because even the locals can't agree on how some other places should be spoken.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 01:05 AM

The suffix "amog" must mean "lake" in Ojibway or something. There's a lake not too far away from here and its name is Lake Kawagashigamog.

I think it's pronounced Ka-wa-ga-SHIG-amog. If you put the accent on "SHIG" it rolls off the tongue fairly readily.

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: Celtaddict
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 12:57 AM

Besides the inimitable Bug Tussle (home of a long time Speaker of the House), Oklahoma also boasts Froggy Bottom. We of the Buck family are fond of Bucksnort, Tennessee, reputed to be site of a well-known distiller's during Prohibition; it is said people used to say 'Let's go to Buck's for a snort.' We liked Friedegg in Germany, too.

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 09:37 PM

Pontosac, Illinois. Seehorn, Illinois. Fishhook, Illinois. All towns along the Mighty Mississippi River....

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: Songster Bob
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 09:24 PM

"I sorta like Wapping, Barking, and Dorking, all places in or near London, England."

I understand the Margaret Thatcher's nickname in certain circles was "Daggers," which is two stops past Barking.

There's a lake in Massachusetts (and possibly a town nearby) named Charchoggagogmanchoggagogcharbunagungamog, which was literally a peace treaty and place name at once, meaning "you fish your side, we fish our side, no one fish the middle".

And all American Indian place names translate as "big river," (except those that don't, like "Iowa," which means "us" or "here").

And I recall seeing it on TV when Truth or Consequences changed its name. That does make me old, don't it?

Songbob

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: JennieG
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 07:32 PM

Oz has lots of double names - viz:

Wagga Wagga
Woy Woy (Spike Milligan lived there)
Lang Lang
Goonoo Goonoo (pronounced Gunny Gunnoo, my grandfather worked there)
Gin Gin
Murrin Murrin

and so on......

Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: Geordie-Peorgie
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 07:15 PM

Oh!!

There's a couple of Twatts in the UK

One in the Shetlands and one in the Orkneys

Mind you, The Houses Of Parliament are full of 'em

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: pdq
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 03:54 PM

In the army, anyone with a name like that was called "alphabet".

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: Don Firth
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 03:53 PM

I worked for a few years as an announcer in a classical music radio station. Necessary qualifications for the job included some acquaintance with the music, but mainly, ability to read and pronounce words and names in miscellaneous languages other than English (even if one couldn't actually speak the language) in a manner more-or-less acceptable to a speaker of the language in question. I had no trouble with the French, Italian, and German, and I could even handle Russian names like baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky, cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, and conductor Gennady Rozhdestvensky without chipping a tooth. (Try 'em!)

But "Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu" has me completely buffaloed!!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: HuwG
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 03:50 PM

Wales has its share of delightful towns which protect themselves from hordes of tourists with names requiring several verbal gear changes. My favourites are:

Machynlleth
Rhosllanerchrugog
Eglwyswrw
Pontycysyllte (invariably referred to as "that viaduct near Llangollen")

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: pdq
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 03:47 PM

I'm still looking for Patsy, Montana.

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: Slag
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 03:40 PM

Paradise CA was originally a casino and saloon back in the day, named Pair o' Dice. Gambling was eventually outlawed and the residents wanted a tamer image, hence: Paradise! I have no idea what they could have been thinking in Montana. Froze near to death and a Grizz breathing down their necks, maybe they thought that it was all that awaited them!

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: Amergin
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 03:21 PM

Good Grief, Idaho....

And why are towns like Paradise, Montana, always anything but?

There is Miami....in Queensland.

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: Slag
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 03:04 PM

Map makers will sometimes include a non-existent place name or village name in an obscure location as a means of detecting copyright infringement. In central California where I grew up there is a little town named Richgrove on the Poterville highway. The old Chevron road map shows another small village just north of it named Orris but Orris does not exist nor did it ever exist and yet other tiny communities in the area go unrecognized such as Columbine CA. Orris may not be a silly name per se, but silly it is!

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: Linda Goodman Zebooker
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 01:24 PM

Some years ago the company I was working for was putting a "Gazeteer of the World" on line. I did some proofing.
My favorite place was the Executive Committee Range, which consisted of "five extinct volcanoes in Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica".

At the time, I was on the board of our local choral organization. We were going through some tough times, and every time things got really bad, our five-member Executive Committee went into closed session. I could just imagine them steaming gently away in there......

Linda

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 01:19 PM

The first one.

:D

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: Becca72
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 01:06 PM

I always thought Fishkill, NY was a bad place to be, 'specially if you're a fish...

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 01:06 PM

On which syllable would one place the accent, Liz?

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 12:55 PM

Well if we're going for longest.. how's this one from New Zealand?

Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu

It's the longest place name in the world. It is the name given by the local Maori people, Ngati Kere to a hill to celebrate the eponymous ancestor Tamatea Pokai Whenua.

Don't ask me to say it, but as a rule, Maori words are pronounced as writ - every letter sounded. The wh sound is like saying a q without touching the roof of your mouth.


LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: Alaska Mike
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 12:52 PM

When the cartographers were mapping western Alaska, they knew that a small town was located on the southern shore of the Seward Peninsula, but did not know the name. So they just wrote down "Name" in the location, planning to go back to it later when the name was known. But the illegible handwriting won out and Nome, Alaska was on the map.

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: Metchosin
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 12:26 PM

Anhluut'ukwsim Laxmihl Angwinga'asanskwhl Nisga'a Provincial Park in BC could give the Welsh a run for their money, although they have broken it down into four words.

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 12:02 PM

I posted yesterday but that comment has vanished. At the time I had beat Don Firth to listing "Pysht" Washington (it was named after Psyche, but no one know how to pronounce the goddess' name).

Bucksnort, Tennessee
Chunky, Mississippi (probably a Choctaw name)

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 11:44 AM

In Webster Massachusetts, there is Lake Chargoggagoggmanchagoggagoggchaubunagungamogg. No kidding.

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: Wolfgang
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 11:42 AM

Both not big enough to be called a city, but Fucking in Austria and Wolfgang in Germany sound a bit unusual.

And why Sterbfritz (die, Fritz) in Germany has not yet changed its name into Strebfritz (quest, Fritz) as once was planned is also a mystery.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 10:48 AM

But of what use is knowing all these strange town names?

Some years back, at the WVA Festival at Winfield, Kansas, a band of loonies in one camp were entertaining some "foreign visitors" (rumor has it that they were Brits?) and started a game of naming strange Kansas places. The end result was the assigning of "camp names" consisting of first and last names which had to be Kansas towns to each of the "members" of the campground.

The "tradition" has continued for several years, but by the time we became acquainted with this particlar camp, most of the well-known names were of course taken, so it was a rather difficult task to find good ones we were willing to use, and extensive debate ensued over whether we could use names of towns that once existed but were no longer on the common maps; but success was finally achieved, after I ran the DeLorme Atlas and Kansas Gazeteer index through the scanner, OCR'd, deleted streams and rivers, and made a scholarly presentation to the adjudicating officials of the camp.

There were numerous obvious "good" names, but it didn't take long to use 'em all up.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 09:21 AM

I am reliably informed by a native of that country that in Denmark is a town called Middlefart. Spaw, over to you!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 09:19 AM

Let us not forget Condom, France.

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 08:11 AM

There's a town in ?Cambridgeshire called Ugely (the locals pronounce it as Hugely without the h) and it possesses a large hall which is proudly displays the sign 'Ugely Women's Institute'.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: retrancer
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 08:06 AM

http://www.swl.usace.army.mil/parks/toadsuck/

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: retrancer
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 08:04 AM

http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/genInfo.php?locIndex=59661

link to "toad suck" LOLOL

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: Geordie-Peorgie
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 06:24 AM

Are the people who live on Goole caalled Goolies???

There's a village in Kent (UK) caalled Luce and aah've always wanted to play a gig for the Luce Womens Institute or even the Luce Young Wives

Sounds like heavenly gigs

There's a village in Cornwall caalled Water Ma Trout

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: Megan L
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 06:07 AM

We don't really do cities north of Inverness but how about some places on the road north.

Badbea
Boath
Doll
spittal
guidbest
achanarras (This last as weel as bing a place is also probably whit the best guide said after the ambush) :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: Teribus
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 06:06 AM

A place signposted on the road south from Aberdeen has always amused me:

Boggindollo

Imagine the conversation.

"Where do you come from"

"Boggindollo, its a dump"

"That's nothin' mate I'm from Boggin' (insert any place name) that's even worse"

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 05:13 AM

Edinburgh,,,sounds like Mr Magoo hunting rabbits. (Lovely place in Scotland)
Upper Ramsbottom...sounds like somewhere you don't want to be! (In Lancashire)
Piddletrenthide in Dorset (in the valley of the river piddle) There was a town or village called Shitterton in the same valley but it has now lost its 'H'

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: alanabit
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 04:09 AM

Not cities, but worth an honourable mention:
Sstudley cum Horton - somewhere in Middle England
Indian Queens - a Cornish Village
Dobwalls   -   another Cornish Village
A small village in Upper Austria (The lower sign means "Not so fast", which proves that Austrians have a sense of humour).

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: Slag
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 03:57 AM

Thanks for the missing info Ebbie. I neglected to mention No Where AZ, about half way between Boulder Dam and Phoenix. There's a body shop and towing service there but that was all I could see as it was late night when I blew through. I should have stopped and got the T-shirt!

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: JennyO
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 01:54 AM

I went through a place called Flourbag once. I think there was one building visible, at least.

I'm sure we do have a lot of weird ones in Oz, but although I don't have the Dreaded Lurgy, like Jennie G does, I have the lethargy, so I can't be arsed to look them up. I think it's post-festival slump.

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 01:47 AM

Shaftesbury is a perfectly decent name for a market town... certainly better that Piddlehinton, Shitterton or Aunt Mary's Bottom - all villages/towns in the same county of Dorset!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Silliest Name for a City....
From: Mickey191
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 01:37 AM

Big Indian and Tilly Foster - New York