New atlas comes to the Great Land of the Tattooed (Cities renamed for etymological origins)

The Telegraph (U.K.) / Various ^ | December 4, 2008 | Oliver Smith

[Stoat]

A fascinating new atlas, featuring cities that are renamed to reflect their etymological origins, is now on sale.

Etymologists and wordsmiths will take particular interest in a new set of maps going on sale in time for Christmas.

The traditional names for the world's cities, countries, rivers and mountains have been altered on an atlas to reflect their origins and literal meaning.

Chicago, for example, is renamed Stink Onion and Cameroon is called the Land of Shrimps.

The logic behind each place name is explained on the back of the maps. Cameroon comes from the Portuguese word camaroes, meaning shrimps or prawns – an allusion to the abundance of these crustaceans in the Sanaga River. Chicago is derived from a Algonquian (a subfamily of native American languages) word: checagou, meaning wild onions or skunk – a reference to the smell of sodden marshland, which is what Chicago was built on.

Other bizarre names include Dominate the East! (Vladivostock), Realm of the God of the Underworld (Madras) and Great Land of the Tattooed, which, rather unhappily, belongs to Great Britain.

"The maps are not definitive works on the etymological roots of geographical names but more of a stimulus, and a very amusing one at that, to make us think about why places are called as they are," explains Sean Quigley of Outstanding Map Distributors, the firm which has brought the maps to Britain from Germany, where they were originally published.

 

 

[Stoat]

Haha!

Good one, thanks for the heads up.

You're quite welcome, and I'm delighted that you've found it to be worthwhile  :-)

Haha!

Good one, thanks for the heads up.

[SunkenCiv]

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[SunkenCiv]

:’) I’m stealing that...

[Tax-chick]

Maybe near Sulawesi, so we could get tasty Indonesian nibbles and keep up the Komodo Dragon guard force.

[Tax-chick]

The boys have used the Oxford Atlas of the World so much that it’s duct-taped together.

[bert]

Hmmm... I thought Deetroit was place of the Enema

[Verginius Rufus]

Some of the etymologies are open to question. They have "Athens" coming from a Sanskrit root, but the name of the city is thought to go back to the pre-Greek population of Greece (Athenai). According to something I read once about Ebla, from the records in Eblaite (discovered in the excavations there in the 1970s), it appears that the name "Euphrates" originally meant "the great cold river."

[Salamander]

I appreciate place name origins particularly because the ones around here are pretty dull.

When the pioneers got this far west, they must have been parched because just about every village/town near me has something involving water in the name.

[Clear Spring, Big Springs, Indian Springs, Falling Waters, Beaver Creek, Berkeley Springs, Bath...you get the drift] ...;-D

It’s a change to read of place names with history behind them rather than thirst....:)

[Salamander]

Be lazy like me....use this....:)

http://www.x-rates.com/calculator.html

[Tax-chick]

Great site! I was considering ordering a music book from Spain recently, but I was intimidated by ordering something priced in Euros, especially when the instructions were in Spanish!

[Salamander]

I know...I have a hard enough time with our *own* money....;D

[Tax-chick]

I sometimes enter an order, and then when the total shows up on the screen, I click on the Big X! It’s not unusual for the shipping cost on something to be more than the price. I hate that!

The shipping rate on these maps from the U.K. was very reasonable.

[Salamander]

That’s a big scam on eBay, too.

An item costs $1.99 but shipping is $50.

It’s called fee avoidance.

There’s a pair of boots in the UK just like ones I already have [I want a spare pair...LOL] but the shipping is more than the boots.

It costs $60 to ship boots from England?

We shipped an entire several-hundred-pound trike kit to Ireland for less than $600.

They sure must use heavy shoe boxes.

[Tax-chick]

They sure must use heavy shoe boxes.

Did you check the fine print? Maybe the order includes some free bowling balls :-).

I package and mail things, and I know how much it costs. $5 to mail a bumper sticker? Give me a break!

[Salamander]

I think they were giving away chunks of Stonehenge, judging by the cost....;]

[I should write them and ask if I’m being charged for ballast]...LOL

We ship trike kits all over the world and have a FedEx biz account.
Sure, it’s gotten a bit higher since the gas price debacle but it’s *nothing* like we get charged for eBay purchases, sometimes.

I do bas-relief sculptures mounted on marble and copper slate tiles for personal mad money and hubby just informed me that my paltry fee of $3 S/H isn’t even close to the real costs.
I’m going to have to up it to $5 *just* to break even and I feel awful about that.
The tiles are stone and *are* fairly heavy.
[heck, I don’t even take into account the bubble envelopes and interior wrapping]

If I were smart and evil, I would sell the tiles for $10 and charge $20 shipping...;-D

[Tax-chick]

With the technology we have today, it shouldn’t be hard to charge a customer the exact amount it costs the shipper to mail. After all, the customer can often see the postage-charge right there on the box when it arrives!

“Handling” can be considered a legitimate issue for a business that has to place a value on its employees’ time, but for a private seller ... phoop, you were going right past the P.O. on the way to the library anyway.

[Salamander]

“After all, the customer can often see the postage-charge right there on the box when it arrives!”

Not with a FedEx biz account.
It’s just an indecipherable bar code....:))

Be that as it may, we have a large scale for heavy items and a small electronic one for little stuff.

Sometimes hubby just calculates a flat rate on eBay items.
Sometimes he comes up a bit short; others he’ll make a buck or two.

I consistently underestimate my shipping so it all balances out....LOL

[Tax-chick]

Best wishes on your businesses!

[Salamander]

Thanks...we’ll need luck to survive Obamanomics.

[Billthedrill]

I don't get it. If the name of that little town in Texas really means "Marsh Cell" then why did the French name their capital after it?

;-p