BS: Oxymoron place names

Subject: RE: BS: Oxymoron place names
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 02:04 PM

Developers really have foisted some pretty low-life constructions on our physical spaces, haven't they? Most folks with an ear for culture don't end up naming things newly built, and most folks with developed aesthetic senses don't end up designing development homes. Consequently, we give huge amounts of our community spaces over to guys whose biggest qualification is power tools and the ability to push things through City Hall! Wodda deal -- we end up with ticky tacky places that look like they were drawn by a gradeschooler, carrying names like Turf'n'surf Towers, or Cholmesley-Under-Gunn Acres. ALl that is required is that good men do nothing, I guess!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Oxymoron place names
From: Poddy
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 01:53 PM

Not exactly oxymoronic, but funny: two towns in Arizona, one called Nothing (consists of a gas station/mechanic/restaurant/general store/house) and another one called Why? (question mark included, I believe)

Subject: RE: BS: Oxymoron place names
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 01:14 PM

There's a place in Co Limerick called "Hospital". It hasn't got one, of course.

Subject: RE: BS: Oxymoron place names
From: catspaw49
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 01:04 PM

I know of what you speak Amos as there is a new subdivision built on Gender Road in Columbus named Gender Commons. Must be a unisex place I guess........

I have always wondered if there are a lot of brothels in Intercourse, Pennsylvania.   And what really goes on in Big Bone Lick, Kentucky? I must admit that French Lick, Indiana sounds inviting even though Larry Byrd was from there and he seems pretty straight and conservative. In Ohio there is a Licking County and you'lll find a sign pointing towards the local Masonic Temple......"Licking Lodge---3 miles"....I didn't know that was a part of freemasonry!

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Oxymoron place names
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 12:38 PM

ANd all those developments who fancy titles like "Blustering Acres" when they are measurable in deci-acres at best! Withering Arms, Decadent Heights, INsipid Rows, Dying Meadows and Flaccid Towers would be more accurate!



A

Subject: RE: BS: Oxymoron place names
From: katlaughing
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 12:33 PM

There is a new subdivision going in near a huge *born-again* church. I don't know if the church owns the land of what, but they are calling it "Faith Heights: a spiritual community!" Be interesting to see how the sales go..."Oh, you're a pagan? Let me show you something else!"

Don't forget old Chugwater, Wyoming where you'd be lucky to find a drop to sip let alone chug.

There is a Berlin in Connecticut, but people pronounce it BURR-lun.

Subject: RE: BS: Oxymoron place names
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 12:21 PM

Isle of Dogs
Virgin Islands
Isle of Sky(e)
Isle of Ewe
I love Paris in the springtime.
Isle get me coat.

Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Oxymoron place names
From: GUEST,John Hernandez
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 12:09 PM

Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York. No longer an island, no longer any coneys (rabbits).

Subject: RE: BS: Oxymoron place names
From: Rapparee
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 12:06 PM

I once drove through two unincorporated places in Missouri. Traveling from east to west, I came upon the first town -- I don't remember the name, so call it Smithville. West Smithville, in fact.

Ten miles further west I came upon East Smithville.

There was no Smithville.

So West Smithville was east of East Smithville....

Subject: RE: BS: Oxymoron place names
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 11:33 AM

I don't know whether it is an oxymoron or not but a place name that has intrigued me since moving to Norfolk is Stratton Strawless.

Huw, my brother who lives in Sheffield calls it Meadow Hell.

Subject: RE: BS: Oxymoron place names
From: sian, west wales
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 11:21 AM

I don't get it, Gareth. Bethlehem IS Bethlehem. You're not trying to suggest there's another ... ?

sian, west wales
who posts her Christmas cards in Bethlehem ...

Subject: RE: BS: Oxymoron place names
From: Gareth
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 11:20 AM

Micca ? Which River Avon ? Waricks, Hants or Avon ???

In Wales we also have Nazereth, and before the Bowdlerisation by the Railway Company to "Pontlottyn" (Trns Lot's Bridge), Sodom and Gommorah.

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Oxymoron place names
From: HuwG
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 11:15 AM

In the Derbyshire Peak District, at lot of the hills are actually called "Lows".

Bleaklow, which I can see from my bedroom window (if you stand on a chair and bend over just so ...) is only partly incorrect; the top is the most dismal black bog imaginable.

There are some other local name endings of (presumably) Anglo-Saxon origin; Clough (deep, narrow valley); Hagg (rough or boggy moorland); Carr (slightly less rough or boggy moorland ???), as possibly in the delightfully-named Carsick Hill, in Sheffield.

Sheffield also boasts Meadow Hall, which is not a meadow and does not have a hall; it is occupied by the M1 flyover, a huge (by UK standards) shopping mall, the sewage works and two derelict cooling towers. Sometimes estate agents should be shot for misrepresentation.

Subject: RE: BS: Oxymoron place names
From: Micca
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 11:07 AM

River Avon?? which is River River if both parts are translated to english, (not quite an oxymoron, but curious anyway)

Subject: RE: BS: Oxymoron place names
From: Wolfgang
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 10:30 AM

When we were young and silly we always laughed about 'Eng-land' (tight-land) and Ir(r)-land (insane-land).

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Oxymoron place names
From: Pseudolus
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 10:27 AM

Got a beach here in Delaware called Broadkill Beach. As far as I know, taken literally, it would describe an illegal activity not to mention politically incorrect! As would Slaughter Beach, also in Delaware.....what the heck were we thinking?

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: Oxymoron place names
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 10:15 AM

Lake George near Canberra is usually dry. All you can see is grass & fences.

Then of course if it's been a very wet year, fences poke out of the water!

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Oxymoron place names
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 10:10 AM

Maidenhead in Berkshire
Minehead in Somerset
Durex in Australia?????

Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Oxymoron place names
From: Billy the Bus
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 10:06 AM

Hi Gareth - glad to see you Welshmen are close to Jerusalem, here in NZ..;0

Mind you, James K Baxter, one of our better known Kiwi bards, lived there for some years.

Cheers - Sam

Subject: RE: BS: Oxymoron place names
From: Gareth
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 09:34 AM

And then there's Bethlehem - in West Wales.

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Oxymoron place names
From: sian, west wales
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 09:32 AM

I'm always disappointed by Weston Under Lizard.

sian

Subject: RE: BS: Oxymoron place names
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 09:15 AM

Linda Vista (Beautiful View). Nice in theory -- dumpy in fact.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Oxymoron place names
From: greg stephens
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 08:38 AM

Greenland

Subject: RE: BS: Oxymoron place names
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 08:36 AM

Buenos Aires?

Benidorm?

Subject: RE: BS: Oxymoron place names
From: Wolfgang
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 08:29 AM

Amerika, a little village in Saxonia, Germany.

There's even a song about that place dwelling on that name:

                   Klein-Amerika im Muldental

                   Rings herum vom Wald umgeben,
                   liegt es still am Wasser da,
                   und die Menschen, die hier leben,
                   wohnen in Amerika.

                   Du brauchst nicht übern Ozean,
                   willst Du reisen nach Amerika,
                   Du besteigst einfach die Muldenbahn
                   und bald schon bist Du da.

                   Denn es liegt im schönen Muldental,
                   und nicht in USA.
                   Sei uns gegrüßt viel tausendmal,
                   Du - mein Klein - Amerika!

Little-America

Surrounded by forest
it lies at the water
and the people who live here
live in America.

You don't have to cross the Ocean
if you want to go to America
you simply board the Mulde-railway
and soon you'll be there.

For it is located in the Mulde valley
and not in the USA
many thousand greetings to you
my little- America.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Oxymoron place names
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 08:05 AM

My Uncle lived in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Only a Midwesterner could imagine that the garden of Eden was out on the Prairie. There is a town nearby that is named Purgatory...

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Oxymoron place names
From: MikeofNorthumbria
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 07:44 AM

In County Durham there's a village called "No Place"

Wassail!

Subject: RE: BS: Oxymoron place names
From: JennieG
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 07:31 AM

In the Bue Mountains, just west of Sydney, there is a place called Valley Heights.
I've never been able to work that one out.....
Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: BS: Oxymoron place names
From: greg stephens
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 07:22 AM

The nasty little estates round here(Cheshire,Staffordshire UK) are all called Badgers' Walk, Nightingale Close, Bishops Mews, Hawthorn Coppice etc etc. A likely story, as they say. Then there's the develoment on the canal near us with the notice "The Wharf: no mooring".
   I drove past a sign to Valley Hill the other day, which was more strictly oxymoronic. And the fact that you have to walk(or drive) up to get to the Downs in southern England must qualify.

Subject: RE: BS: Oxymoron place names
From: Gurney
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 02:54 AM

Mobile.

Subject: RE: BS: Oxymoron place names
From: Billy the Bus
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 12:56 AM

Hrre on Stewart Island (NZ) we have a 'Deep Bay' that is anyuthing but. At low tide you can all-but walk to the entrance - guess it's 'deep' horizontally rather than vertically.

Cheers - Sam

Subject: RE: BS: Oxymoron place names
From: katlaughing
Date: 16 Jun 03 - 11:54 PM

Riverview Street in Mills, Wyoming. We never could see the river from it. Our relatives came to visit, drove up and down the river looking for our house...several blocks over.

Great site, I could get lost in there for hours! Beautiful Mary Tood Lincoln!!

Thanks,

kat

Subject: BS: Oxymoron place names
From: Bsondahl
Date: 16 Jun 03 - 11:45 PM

I just finished a trip across half of North America, and want to gripe about place names that clearly are self contradictory. The two I passed are Big Timber, Montana and Mountain Lake, Minnesota. Big Timber is surrounded by bare hills, and although there are trees in town, no big timber.
Mountain Lake, Minnesota, one would at least expect a lake in the state of 20,000 lakes, but in fact the lake was drained and planted to corn. No mountains within several hundred miles.

There are more examples. Every developer that names a subdivision, for example. Want specifics? Quail Run. Maybe they did when the developers got there, but not when they were done...

And then there's Los Angeles...

Any others?
Brad Sondahl
my home page