Wierd Local Names

[Sibirsky]

Wow!

There's a lot of English and German words in Russian, and now some more English words are used, even though Russian words for those terms exist due to Westernization. First time I hear of a Russian word used in another language. Especially a Western one.

A lot of the Islamic territory of Russia, and the former republics of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, obviously have the "stan" endings but have been Russified. Last names that have an Arabic root, but Russian ending are common. Like Abdulaev. Son of Abdul.

The society of Our Language (genootschap Onze Taal) thinks it's likely to have been borrowed from the kozaks who were around this area back in 1814 to get rid of nappie.

I like and respect the Казаки́.

[Alien Space Bats]

First time I hear of a Russian word used in another language. Especially a Western one.

"Mammoth" is the best known English word of Russian origin.

[Nazi Flower Power]

Anyone mentioned Braintree?

[Syvorji]

Did anyone mention Karl-Marx-Stadt?

[Sibirsky]

First time I hear of a Russian word used in another language. Especially a Western one.

"Mammoth" is the best known English word of Russian origin.

Learn something new everyday.

[Sorratsin]

You forgot to mention the most important part of Ypsilanti, our 150 foot tall brick penis.

[The Blaatschapen]

You forgot to mention the most important part of Ypsilanti, our 150 foot tall brick penis.

Ah, so that's where I left it.

[Greater Rhodes]

Funny and weird place names? Manitoba's got every other province beat, except for maybe Saskatchewan. Some of the best:

-Bagot
-Red Sucker Lake
-Bird
-Birdtail
-Blumenort
-Bacon Ridge
-Brokenhead
-Bield
-Ebb and Flow
-Finger
-Miami
-Pilot Mound
-The Pas
-Hone
-Jackhead
-Lizard Point
-Five Fingers
-Cork
-Snowflake
-Starbuck
-Optic Lake
-Flin Flon
-Wampum

[Sorratsin]

You forgot to mention the most important part of Ypsilanti, our 150 foot tall brick penis.

Ah, so that's where I left it.

How did you manage to lose track of this?

[Greater Tezdrian]

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch is made of win.

[Miasto Lodz]

You forgot to mention the most important part of Ypsilanti, our 150 foot tall brick penis.

Ah, so that's where I left it.

Rzeszów in Poland has quite opposite landmark.

[The Blaatschapen]

Ah, so that's where I left it.

Rzeszów in Poland has quite opposite landmark.

What about Budapest: http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5001/521 ... e2c4dd.jpg

[Miasto Lodz]

Rzeszów in Poland has quite opposite landmark.

What about Budapest: http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5001/521 ... e2c4dd.jpg

Tighter = better. Hungarians win.

[Grenartia]

Most Turkish place-names are just the result of the Turks trying to pronounce Greek place-names in Turkish. That's how "Smyrna" became "Izmir" (toss an aspirant in front and drop the final "-na") and how "Constantinople" became "Istanbul" (replace the first phoneme ["Con-"] with one of those handy aspirants and drop that medial "-tino-"; then kind of mumble the whole thing to make it work). Those sorts of things are common when dissimilar languages overlay each other.

I find if funnier when people make changes that aren't required by the language, like pronouncing "Versailles" as "Ver-SALES", even though English doesn't have a problem with the "-sailles" sound.

Odder, though are cases like this, again from Michigan:

• Saline: Pronounced "Suh-LEEN"; the name comes from the river, and it means exactly what you'd think it does ("salty") - but in this case the Frenchmen who named it gave it their pronunciation (because the town's name is exactly like that of the French word "salin"). What's interesting is that the town and river get spelled the English way, but pronounced the French way.
  
  Interesting, Saline, LA uses the exact same pronunciation.

Makes total sense to me. Its hard to find freshwater in Louisiana, and both areas were settled by the French.

[Intangelon]

Puyallup, Washington.

[pyoo-AL (like the name) - up]

Snohomish, Washington.

[snow-HOE-mish]

Snoqualmie, Washington.

[snow-QUALL-me]

Methow Valley, Washington.

[MEH-tahw ("tow" like "tower")]

Washington has lotsa weird places. The whole Native, French, English, Russian, Spanish, all after furs 'n trees 'n gold thing back in the day.

[Intangelon]

Funny and weird place names? Manitoba's got every other province beat, except for maybe Saskatchewan. Some of the best:

-Bagot
-Red Sucker Lake
-Bird
-Birdtail
-Blumenort
-Bacon Ridge
-Brokenhead
-Bield
-Ebb and Flow
-Finger
-Miami
-Pilot Mound
-The Pas
-Hone
-Jackhead
-Lizard Point
-Five Fingers
-Cork
-Snowflake
-Starbuck
-Optic Lake
-Flin Flon
-Wampum

Maybe. But there's also Newfoundland:

Oh Newfoundland, oh Newfoundland, ya island in the sea
I love you oh so very much, I joined the Ministry
To show you people 'round the rock when tourist season's here
Although in my opinion it' s a gem throughout the year
Well if you're one for swimming, don't think it's outta reach
You can go and take a dip along Groswater Beach
I know the name's misleading, that's quite a problem here
Instead let's go to Goobies and have ourselves a beer

From Woody Point to Come-By-Chance to good ol' Ferryland
Come take a look at Gander, Blackhead's mighty grand
Don't let the names deceive you, Newfoundland's mighty fine
So spend a night on Dildo if you think you've got the time

Well you can go to Blow-Me-Down before it get's to dark (GASP)
Oh sorry ma'am, I should have said, that's our provincial park
There's also Whippet Harbour, or maybe Butter Pot
Or maybe I'll just hit the pub I'm feeling like a shot
Well you can sail on Quidi Vidi, or look at Joe Batt's Arm
There's Placentia and there's Cow Head (MOOO!), they're so full of charm
Get married down in Kilbride, have a party in Hate Bay
Or have some screech in Fogo and forget about the day

From Woody Point to Come-By-Chance to good ol' Ferryland
Come take a look at Gander, Blackhead's mighty grand
Don't let the names deceive you, Newfoundland's mighty fine
So spend a night on Dildo if you think you've got the time
Okay, the Drinkin' Verse

*sing drunkenly here*

From Woody Point to Come-By-Chance to good ol' Ferryland
Come take a look at Gander, Blackhead's mighty grand
Don't let the names deceive you, Newfoundland's mighty fine
So spend a night on Dildo if you think you've got the time
So spend a night on Dildo if you think you've got the time
So spend a night on Dildo if you think you've got the time
COD!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpycgIlhJXs

[Grenartia]

Did anyone mention Karl-Marx-Stadt?

Ok. So somebody decided to name a town after Karl Marx. Whats so weird about that?

Puyallup, Washington.

[pyoo-AL (like the name) - up]

Snohomish, Washington.

[snow-HOE-mish]

Snoqualmie, Washington.

[snow-QUALL-me]

Methow Valley, Washington.

[MEH-tahw ("tow" like "tower")]

Washington has lotsa weird places. The whole Native, French, English, Russian, Spanish, all after furs 'n trees 'n gold thing back in the day.

I'm sorry but Washington state aint got nothing on Louisiana.

I live in Louisiana, which like the OP's home state of Michigan, was settled by the French. Hence, I perfectly understand where he's coming from. There are a few areas in Louisiana that have weird names.

Lake Pontchartrain- this one's actually pretty easy. Pontch-ar-train

Lake Maurepas- no not that Maurepas, but a lake right next to Lake Pontchartrain. Mor-eh-pah

Plaquemines- this is a parish (Louisiana word for county in case you didnt know), its basically the mouth of the river, and the surrounding peninsula. Plack-e-mins

Pointe à la Hache- the parish seat of Plaquemines parish. Point-a-la-hash

Lafayette- I think most people pronounce it right the first time, but some states have cities with the same spelling, but totally different pronounciations. Case in point, Lafayette,TN is pronounced 'La-fay-ette', not 'Laf-ay-ette', which is the Louisiana pronounciation. (this is the only location west of Baton Rouge that I'll mention, because everything west of there might as well be Texas)

Within New Orleans proper (Pretty much any normal pronounciation for New Orleans will fly. Besides, we get so many tourists that it doesnt really matter. Also, I'm pretty sure there's not an agreed on pronounciation. But I digress, so just say it however the hell you want . ), there are several locations that need to be pronounced correctly.

Café du Monde- this is a rather famous restaurant that serves among other things, beignets (pronounced 'ben-yay'), which is pretty much a local delicacy*. Cafe-do-Mon
*Note that pronouncing either the restaurant or the dish wrong will at the very least make us locals give you funny looks. Its fucking hilarious to hear it mispronounced (although it is understandable, and most of us probably wont give you too much shit about it).

Esplanade Avenue- nothing really important here, but it is important to know how to pronounce it. Es-plan-aid

Tchoupitoulas Street- a really fucking important street in New Orleans. If you ever plan on going sight seeing in the city, it is absolutely necessary for you know know how to pronounce this street. But its fucking hilarious to hear people butcher it, so I'm going to tell you to try to pronounce it out loud, without looking it up, and then click the spoiler for the pronounciation.

Chop-it-to-las

On the Northshore, we have:

Fontainebleau State Park- pretty much the only beach in Louisiana that was unmolested by BP. That's because its located on scenic Lake Pontchartrain, and its pretty much the only beach in the state (aside from Grand Isle). Just say Fountainblue, and you have the pronounciation.

Tchefuncte river- a river that runs through a town called Madisonville (A nice little town, actually. There's even an excellent restaurant right on the rivershore. I highly recommend it.). Its pronounced similar to Tchoupitoulas. Che-func-tah

Tangipahoa parish- this is pretty much where New Orleans stops, and Baton Rouge begins. The town of Kentwood (the hometown of the mostrosity known to the world as Britney Spears), is located here.

Ponchatoula (Ponch-a-toola) is the Strawberry Capital of the World and home of the (in)famous Strawberry festival (its fun, if you can manage to get where you want to go, but you really cant because theres half a million people in a town that usually has less than 10,000. Apparently, two Navy tankers were named after it.

[Jari Head]

We can let these slide. The founders of all these places were probably drunk.

No doubt.

and sounds like a bit sex crazed

[Sibirsky]

No doubt.

and sounds like a bit sex crazed

That may be due to the official Soviet stance on the issue.

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union viewed pornography and sex in general as "a wasteful consumer of energies better devoted to the building of Communism."

Can't get laid, might as well name towns after genitalia.

[Maurepas]

Nobody can pronounce the names of our places and towns but us. I've yet to hear the tourist that did it right, and I spent a long time working for a cab company.

[Mongolian Khanate]

and sounds like a bit sex crazed

That may be due to the official Soviet stance on the issue.

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union viewed pornography and sex in general as "a wasteful consumer of energies better devoted to the building of Communism."

Can't get laid, might as well name towns after genitalia.

And they called it the workers' paradise...

They saw consumer goods as wasteful too I guess? And in early 1990s, I guess food was too

[Sibirsky]

That may be due to the official Soviet stance on the issue.

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union viewed pornography and sex in general as "a wasteful consumer of energies better devoted to the building of Communism."

Can't get laid, might as well name towns after genitalia.

And they called it the workers' paradise...

They saw consumer goods as wasteful too I guess? And in early 1990s, I guess food was too

Pretty much. The entire nation was one long joke. Black humor.

[Grenartia]

and sounds like a bit sex crazed

That may be due to the official Soviet stance on the issue.

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union viewed pornography and sex in general as "a wasteful consumer of energies better devoted to the building of Communism."

Can't get laid, might as well name towns after genitalia.

Yup.

[KneelBeforeZod]

Chicken, Alaska
Deadhorse, Alaska
Bumble Bee, Arizona
Surf, Arkansas
Wimp, Arkansas
You Bet, Arkansas
No Name, Colorado


Sources: [1]

Don't forget Fifty Six and "Y" City (both in Arkansas). In Tennessee we have Bell Buckle, Bugscuffle, Finger, Three Way, Only, not one but TWO places called Frog Jump, and probably many others I can't think of right this minute.

EDIT: I thought of some more places.
Ooltewah (don't ask me how to pronounce it); Gift; and Jimtown, Tennessee;
Palestine, Arkansas (and all this time you thought Palestine was in the Middle East, didn't you? lol);
Big Bone Lick State Park and Golgotha Family Fun Park in Kentucky (IIRC i THINK Big Bone Lick is a state park)

[KneelBeforeZod]

I've been to Toad Suck! also
Athole, ID. (Uh-thole)
The Willamette River in OR (will-AM-it)
Beavertown, OH
Paris, KY
Persia, TN
Kissimmee, FL (kiss-EM-ee)

Persia, TN? I've never heard of Persia, Tennessee, and I've lived in Tennessee all my life.