2 Place Names, by Jerome C. Hixson, Words, Sept., 1936, p. 13.
3 Jan., p. 19.
4 I am indebted here to Mr. L. Clark Keating.
5 A Diary in America, p. 151.
6 In an editorial entitled What’s In a Name? the Boston Herald reported on Sept. 3, 1944 that 27 Washingtons remained. The writer in the Knickerbocker Magazine for 1839, just quoted, said that there was then “a county or town of Washington in every State and Territory of the Union, except Delaware,” and that in the majority there was both a town and a county. Delaware still lacks a Washington, though it has a Lincoln. Washington Territory was organized March 2, 1853 and became a State on Nov. 11, 1889.
7 The writer in the Knickerbocker Magazine, just quoted, said that there were 257 town-names embodying New in the United States in 1839. Today there must be many more. There are also four State names out of forty-eight.
1 Krapp, Vol. I, p. 194.
2 The Classic Nomenclature of Western New York, by Victor H. Paltsits, Magazine of History, May, 1911, pp. 246–49.
3 For example, Fitz-Greene Halleck and Joseph Rodman Drake in one of their Croaker Papers in the New York Evening Post, June 17, 1819. They assumed that DeWitt was to blame and declared that he had “reared for himself an everlasting monument of pedantry and folly.”
4 Classical Place-Names in America, American Speech, April, pp. 261–71.
5 See also Classical Names in New York State, by Edward E. Hale, American Speech, Feb., 1928, p. 256; Origin of Classical Place-Names of Central New York, by Charles Marr, Quarterly Journal of the New York State Historical Association, July, 1926, pp. 155–67; New York Classical Names Due to Governor Clinton, New York Times, Feb. 26, 1928, p. 5, and Classical Place Names in Tennessee, by A. W. McWhorter, Word-Study, Nov., 1933, pp. 7 and 8.
1 American Place-Names, by Louis N. Feipel, American Speech, Nov., 1925, p. 89. “On a certain railroad in western Iowa,” says Allen Walker Read in Observations on Iowa Place Names, American Speech, Oct., 1929, “are three towns at intervals of five miles named Plover, Mallard and Curlew. The explanation seems to be that the first president of the railroad, Charles E. Whitehead, was a great hunter and had often hunted through the region before the railroad was built.”
2 Observations on Iowa Place Names, just cited, pp. 28–29. The New Yorker reported, Feb. 15, 1947, p. 21, that a composer named Ernst Krenek had lately used the names of the stops on the Santa Fe between Albuquerque and Los Angeles as the text for a chorus a cappella.
3 How one officer of the Forest Service bestowed scores of names upon natural features of the Wenatchee National Forest in Washington is described at length in Place-Names in the Northwest, by A. H. Sylvester, American Speech, Dec., 1943, pp. 241–52.
4 In the Knickerbocker Magazine.
1 William Pitt, first Earl of Chatham (1708–78), remained popular in America because of his opposition to Lord North’s harsh treatment of the colonies and his vigorous defense of them in the French and Indian War. This popularity, in 1758, caused the unlovely Pittsburgh to be substituted for the charming Fort Duquesne.
2 Names of Places, New York Mirror, April 15, 1837, p. 335. I am indebted here to Dr. Joseph M. Carrière.
3 See Stewart, pp. 330–32.
4 Strangers in Mississippi Find Hot Coffee is Place, Baltimore Evening Sun, Oct. 21, 1932.
5 These Texas specimens are from South-western Slang, by Socrates Hyacinth, Overland Monthly, Aug., 1869.
6 The last seven come from Newark Library: Books’ Baedeker, Newark News, May 23, 1938. Who’s Who in America gives Waterproof as the birthplace of Franklin O. Adams, a distinguished architect. Neal O’Hara reported in the Boston Traveler, Aug. 12, 1946, that a Louisiana newspaper once made a sensation by printing the headline: Seven Waterproof Negroes Drown. I am indebted here to Mr. Alexander Kadison.
7 American Towns Bear Odd Names, New York Times, Feb. 7, 1932.
8 A village in Spencer county, not far from the Ohio river. At Christmas time many thousands of American children write to Santa Claus there. When the Postoffice proposed to change its name the Indiana delegation in Congress made loud and effective objection.
1 The last eight are from Titular Tour, Atlantic Monthly, Nov., 1934, pp. 639–40.
2 The last thirteen are from U.S. is Full of Odd and Wonderful Names, Life, Jan. 31, 1944, p. 57.
3 For the last two I am indebted to Capt. Morris U. Lively, of Norman, Okla.
4 Letters From the West, Containing Sketches of Scenery, Manners and Customs, and Anecdotes Connected With the First Settlements of the Western Sections of the United States; London, 1828. For this I am indebted to An Early Discussion of Place Names, by John T. Flanagan, American Speech, April, 1939, pp. 157–59.
5 Long before this there was a Sodom in New York State, and it still exists. It is in Warren county.
6 California Gold-Rush English, by Marian Hamilton, American Speech, Aug., 1932, p. 425.
1 The Pacific Tourist; New York, 1876.
2 Gouge Eye, for example, is now Pleasant Grove, and Hell’s Neck, Mo., has become Neck City. I am indebted for the last to Mrs. Vernon A. Rea, of Waygata, Minn.
3 Some of these got their names from old inn signs, as did Red Lion in York county, Broad Axe and King of Prussia in Montgomery, Rising Sun in Lehigh, and Compass and White Horse in Chester. But the origin of Intercourse is mysterious, and A. Howry Espenshade does not discuss it in his Pennsylvania Place-Names; State College (Pa.), 1925. The village, which is near Lancaster, does a roaring trade in postcards with passing motorists. Some Western geographical names of an indelicate nature are listed in Nomina Abitera, by W. L. McAtee; Washington, 1945, pp. 3 and 4.
4 The precise date I do not know. The article was reprinted in the New York Mirror, Oct. 21. I am indebted here to Dr. Joseph M. Carrière.
1 Report on Uniform System for Spelling Foreign Geographic Names. See Foreign Geographic Names on the Mariner’s Chart, by James B. Hutt, United States Naval Institute Proceedings, Jan., 1946, pp. 39–47. I am indebted here to Rear Admiral G. S. Bryan, U.S.N., ret.
1 Its first report, issued Dec. 31, 1890, was published at the cost of the Smithsonian; its second, May 25, 1891, at that of the Coast and Geodetic Survey; and its third, Aug. 1, 1891, at that of the Lighthouse Board.
2 Say Now, Shibboleth, Nation’s Business, Aug., 1943, pp. 76–78.
1 In the earliest records, c. 1634, St. Mary’s appeared as St. Maries; by the end of the Seventeenth Century it had become St. Mary’s. Prince George’s was so denominated by an act of the Assembly, 1695, and Queene Anne’s by an act of 1706.
2 One of the few exceptions is Martha’s Vineyard. Here the apostrophe was saved by vigorous local protests.
3 But not in Pittsburgh, where local indignation stayed it.
4 A landing on the Hudson river. Local usage seems to have made it Jone’s Point originally, with the apostrophe ahead of the s instead of after it. Then it became Jones-point. The board prefers Jones Point.
5 In the Revolutionary era even worse amalgamations were common. The Village Record of Amherst, N. H., used Newhampshire, and other papers used Newbedford, Rhodeisland and Newengland. This madness was followed by the wide use of hyphens, e.g., New-York, which was the practise of all the New York papers in the 30s and 40s. I am indebted here to Mr, Charles J. Lovell.
1 The question is discussed at length in First Report on Foreign Geographic Names; Washington, 1932. The American press associations, on April 8, 1944, decided to use native forms in their foreign correspondence in all save 78 cases. These exceptions include Moscow instead of Moskva, Athens instead of Athenai, and Limerick instead of Luimneach. A full list is in the Editor and Publisher, April 15, 1944.
2 The Name Texarkana, by M. E. Melton, American Speech, Nov., 1926, p. 113.
3 American Speech, Dec., 1933, p. 80.
1 This is the name, not of a town, but of a whole region – the lower peninsula between the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic. There is a Delmarva Ne
ws at Selbysville, Del., and at Wilmington, Del., there is a Delmarvia Review. There are Delmars in various States far from those here named, but their names seem to be derived from the Spanish term for “by the sea.” I am indebted here to Mr. Donald L. Cherry, of Watsonville, Calif.
2 I take the last two from Two State Towns and Cities, by Miriam Allen deFord, American Notes & Queries, Oct., 1945, p. 112.
3 The last two are from American Notes & Queries, Sept., 1946, p. 91. Henry J. Heck printed fifty specimens in State Border Place-Names, American Speech. Feb., 1028, pp. 186–90. Stewart says, p. 364, that such names “never became popular in the East and Middle West,” but that there are “about sixty” examples in the South and Far West. “The three chief railroads,” he continues, “cross the California line at Calneva, Calzona and Calexico. Many boundary names also record a location on the line between two counties or near the junction of three.”
4 The Synthetic Place Name in West Virginia, American Speech, Feb., 1940, pp. 39–44. See also his West Virginia Place Names; Piedmont (W. Va.), 1945, pp. 57–58.
5 Texas Towns; Terrell (Texas), 1936.
6 Coined Town-Names of North Dakota, American Speech, Dec., 1939, p. 315.
1 I borrow the last four from Stewart, p. 363.
2 The last two come from Origins of Utah Place Names, third edition; Salt Lake City, 1940.
3 They are discussed in Some American Place-Name Problems, by George R. Stewart, American Speech, Dec., 1944, pp. 289–92. In the same paper he also discusses the common American practise of referring to a county by its proper name only, omitting county.
4 American Notes & Queries, Jan., 1946, p. 155.
5 American Notes & Queries, Jan., 1946, p. 157. The original name of the village was Burrell Inn, but Berlin had been adopted for convenience. Distomo was a town in Greece, destroyed in the war.
6 U.S. Board on Geographical Names, Decision List No. 4408, Aug., 1944, p. 169. The democratic flavor of the new name will be noted. Stewart says, p. 372, that World War I “left less effect upon the map than the average presidential election of a hundred years earlier.” Berlin, Ga., became Lens, but reverted to Berlin after the war. Potsdam, Mo., became Pershing; Brandenburg, Texas, became Old Glory, and Kiel, Calif., became Loyal, but Bismarck, the capital of North Dakota, kept its name. In Canada Berlin, Ont., became Kitchener and has so remained.
1 This joint resolution was approved March 15, 1881. It is given in full in The Basis of Correctness in the Pronunciation of Place-Names, by Allen Walker Read, American Speech, Feb., 1933, pp. 42–43. It was during the debate on this resolution that one of the legislators loosed a speech that has come down in stag-party humor as “What! Change the name of Arkansaw? Never!” A much bowdlerized version of it is in Native American Humor, edited by James R. Aswell; New York, 1947, pp. 359–60.
2 Mr. Charles J. Lovell tells me that The Ohio and Mississippi Pilot; Pittsburgh, 1820, p. 132, says: “The name Kanzaw is applied to the country watered by the river Kanzas, which should be pronounced Kanzaw.” It is spelled Konza in the report of Major Stephen H. Long’s journey from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains, made in 1819–21. See The Pronunciation of Arkansas, by Robert T. Hill, Science, Aug. 26, 1887, pp. 107–08.
3 Broadcast English, VI, by A. Lloyd James; London, 1937, p. 22.
4 Dr. James T. Barrs, in a speech before the English Lunch Club at Harvard, Feb. 12, 1944, said: “South Georgians, along with other Southerners, have trouble in pronouncing Ohio. They treat the hi as if it were how, and say Ohowo.”
5 This, at all events, was the theory of John Murdoch (1852–1925), librarian of the Smithsonian, and he set it forth tartly in Science, Sept. 2, 1887, p. 120.
1 The Ohio town, county and river, not the Florida hellmouth.
2 Harold Wentworth, in his American Dialect Dictionary; New York, 1944, pp. 722–23, prints about 200 examples.
3 Franz Boas says in Geographical Names of the Kwakiutl Indians; New York, 1934, p. 20, that Missouri is derived from an Indian term, m’nisose, meaning roily water.
4 Pronunciation of the Word Missouri, American Speech, Dec., 1933, pp. 22–36. See also The Word Missouri, Missouri Historical Review, Oct., 1939, pp. 87–93.
5 Linguistic Change; Chicago, 1917, pp. 79–80.
6 The Pronunciation of Standard English in America; New York, 1919, pp. 80–81.
7 American Pronunciation; ninth edition; Ann Arbor (Mich.), 1945, pp. 168–69.
8 To this effect he quotes the St. Louis Post-Dispatch as follows: “Mizzoura rolls from the tongue with mellifinous [sic] grandeur. It must be spoken with open mouth and erect head. It suggests beauty and greatness. Mizzoury … ends in a piping squeak. A lion’s roar to a peewee’s pipe!… Mizzoury is a pretty name for a nice little school girl, but it will never do for the Queen of the Union.”
9 H. A. Shands says in Some Peculiarities of Speech in Mississippi, 1893, that in that State Massasip is “sometimes used by Negroes and illiterate whites for Mississippi,” but is apparently unused on higher levels.
10 The use of the diminutive in this case is justified historically, for Tulsa was named after an Osage chief named Tulsey. I am indebted here to Capt. Morris U. Lively, of Norman, Okla.
1 Read says “perhaps two-thirds.” I incline to think that his estimate is too low.
2 The local preference extends to regions outside Missouri, especially to the southward. When, in 1911, Dr. William A. Read, of Louisiana State University, polled college students in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia on their pronunciation, he found that 162 out of 238 preferred the -a-ending and all save one preferred -zz- to -ss-. See Dialect Notes, Vol. II, Part VII, 1911, p. 500.
3 The New International Encyclopedia gives Pahotcha or Pahucha as the form and says that it meant dusty noses. The Encyclopedia Americana makes it Palinchas, of the same meaning.
1 Atlantic Monthly, April, 1931, p. 62 of Advertising Section. The DAE records loway for 1836, 1839 and 1841, but Iowa for 1810, 1840 and 1853. The Encyclopedia Americana adds Ayanways and Ajowes to the early forms of the name. The lowa tribe came into what is now Iowa from Minnesota. In 1861 it was concentrated on reservations in Kansas and the present Oklahoma.
2 Chicago, 1941.
3 New York, 1946. References to other discussions are in The Basis of Correctness in the Pronunciation of Place-Names, by Allen Walker Read, American Speech, Feb., 1933, p. 43.
4 Broadcast English VI, by A. Lloyd James; London, 1937, p. 45.
5 NBC Handbook of Pronunciation; New York, 1943, p. 189.
6 A Desk Book of 25,000 Words Frequently Mispronounced; New York, 1917; p. 561.
1 Harry L. Wells, author of California Names; Los Angeles. His first edition of 1934 gives Los Ahng-hay-lays, but in his edition of 1940 he makes it Ahn-hay-lays.
2 The Pronunciation of Spanish Place Names in California, American Speech, Dec., 1942, p. 241.
3 A Pronouncing Dictionary of American English; Springfield (Mass.), 1944, p. 260. This phonetician seems to have overlooked the fact that Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez, in her Spanish and Indian Place Names of California; San Francisco, 1914, p. 339, had recommended Loce Ahng-hell-ess.
4 The full name of Los Angeles, in Spanish times, was El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncúla. Harry L. Wells, in California Names, before cited, says that Los Angeles de Porciuncúla was the name of a shrine of St. Francis Assisi in Italy, and that it was given to the Los Angeles river by Padre Crespi in 1769. Porciúncula is Spanish for a small portion or allowance.
5 Private communication, March 21, 1935.
6 A Yankee Comments on Texas Speech, American Speech, April, 1945, p. 82. I am also indebted here to Mr. William C. Stewart, of Southbridge, Mass., and to Dr. Josiah Combs, of Fort Worth.
7 Private communication, Dec. 28, 1946.
8 The American Spelling Book; revised impression; Brattleborough (Vt.), 1814, p. v.
2 There is an interesting discussion of this question in Broadcast English, II, by A. Lloyd James; London, 1930, pp. 6–10.
3 American Place Names; New York.
1 There is a good account of Schoolcraft in Lost Men of America, by Stewart H. Holbrook; New York, 1946, p. 208. He was an eccentric fellow, and some of the Indian names he listed were actually inventions of his own.
2 Providence, 1861. Parsons (1728–1868) was a Maine man who studied medicine in Boston under the celebrated John Warren and served as a naval surgeon in the War of 1812. At the battle of Lake Erie he was in sole charge of the American wounded. He became professor of anatomy at Brown University in 1823.
3 The Composition of Indian Geographical Names, Illustrated From the Algonkin Languages; Hartford, 1870. Trumbull (1821–97) was a native of Connecticut and a graduate of Yale. He held several public offices, but gave most of his time to the study of the Indian languages. From 1863 until his death he was librarian of the Watkinson Library at Hartford and president of the Connecticut Historical Society. In 1874 he was president of the American Philological Association. He supplied the polyglot quotations used as chapter headings in The Gilded Age, by S. L. Clemens (Mark Twain) and Charles Dudley Warner, 1873.
4 Washington, 1902; second edition, 1905. A volume of 334 pages, listing nearly 9,000 names. Gannett (1846–1914) was a native of Maine and a graduate of Harvard. He became chief geographer of the Geological Survey in 1882 and was one of the original members of the United States Geographic Board. He also published gazetteers of Cuba and Puerto Rico.
1 At its annual meeting in Dec., 1938, the Present-Day English section of the Modern Language Association appointed a committee on place-names and passed a resolution expressing “a strong interest” in the subject, but nothing has been done about it since. See The Place Name Committee, American Speech, April, 1939, pp. 136–38.
2 Vol. I, pp. 169–200.
3 Plans For the Study of Missouri Place-Names, Jan., 1928, pp. 237–41.
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