The forest of Skund was indeed enchanted, which was nothing unusual on the Disc, and was also the only forest in the whole universe to be called – in the local language – Your Finger You Fool, which was the literal meaning of the word Skund.
The reason for this is regrettably all too common. When the first explorers from the warm lands around the Circle Sea travelled into the chilly hinterland they filled in the blank spaces on their maps by grabbing the nearest native, pointing at some distant landmark, speaking very clearly in a loud voice, and writing down whatever the bemused man told them. Thus were immortalised in generations of atlases such geographical oddities as Just A Mountain, I Don’t Know, What? and, of course, Your Finger You Fool.
Rainclouds clustered around the bald heights of Mt. Oolskunrahod (‘Who is this Fool who does Not Know what a Mountain is’) and the Luggage settled itself more comfortably under a dripping tree, which tried unsuccessfully to strike up a conversation.
Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic
I have to read Terry Pratchet! He seems to write like Douglas Adams
He’s very similar.
The first couple of books are quite heavy going, but it settles into a rhythm soon enough.
Reminds me of “*DN” meaning river as well near the black sea.
Or “*RN” meaning river in western continental europe. That’s why we got Rhone and Rhein.
Wait until you learn about Torpenhow Hill.
- Tor, from Old English torr, meaning hill.
- Pen, from Celtic *penn, meaning hill.
- How, from Danish hoh, meaning hill.
- Hill, from English hill, meaning hill.
Unfortunately, it’s not actually a real official name for a hill, though it could be…
There is a neighborhood in Cartagena, Spain, that is called Nueva Cartagena, which basically means new new new city
Naming cities like boomers name their documents
Hill4
Hill, from English hill, meaning hill.
Fucking love it.
You gotta remove the ^ behind each word
^unfortunately vs unfortunately
I don’t know what client you’re using, but this displays correctly on lemmy-ui and Jerboa, and it matches the Lemmy markdown syntaxt as documented. I’d suggest requesting your client fix its renderer.
Clients seem to interpret the markdown differently. It displays correctly on the main desktop site.
They asked several people what it was and wrote down all the answers
That basically is exactly how this sort of thing comes about, only spread out over time.
Or Naan bread. Or Chai tea.
or iwo jima Island or Mount midoriyama
jima is Island, yama is mountain… midori is green, so midoriyama could be translated as green mountain.
Holy shit, now this makes sense
Ghost of Tsushima Island
I’ve never actually heard anyone say “naan bread” except as in this joke.
Do people also say “tortilla bread” wherever they’re saying “naan bread”? Haha
I feel like the wojaks should be swapped since this makes the Romans look dumb.
I respect your consideration of the wojaks involved.
Romans got to determine the terminology that people would use for thousands of years.
Celts got their culture disrespected and forgotten.
Idk. Feels like splitting hairs.
On one hand you’re right about the culture thing. On the other hand imagine a translation mistake lasting thousands of years.
If anything, it’s a little based of the Romans. They didn’t come in and rename them all Claudius Flavius or Biggus Dickus or whatever, they just asked the locals for their names, wrote them down, and left them as what the locals called them.
Don’t forget the imperial timekeeper, Favious Flav. Yeeeaaah, boyyy!
With a big sundial around his neck
Yeah but how many times can you hear the same name be given and not go “Wait I think we might be doing this wrong…”
I live near a Hillhill on the Hill.
This is why the entire country of Canada is called Canada.
The modern Turkish name İstanbul (pronounced [isˈtanbuɫ]) (Ottoman Turkish: استانبول) is attested (in a range of variants) since the 10th century, at first in Armenian and Arabic (without the initial İ-) and then in Ottoman sources. It probably comes from the Greek phrase “στὴν Πόλι” [stimˈboli], meaning “in the city”, reinterpreted as a single word; a similar case is Stimboli, Crete. It is thus based on the common Greek usage of referring to Constantinople simply as The City.
Aren’t those Picts in the drawing?
Picts or it didn’t happen
The Picts are a kind of Celt.
I am no expert, but I thought Picts were distinct from Celts and eventually assimilated with the scots
About like the “Mississippi River” or the “Rio Grande River”
It’s just called the Rio Grande.
Twisting through a dusty land
And when she shines, she really shows you all she can.
Reminds me of the Disney movie Brave:
The royal castle is called Castle Dunbroch (Castle Castlecastle) and it also prominently features Eurasian Brown Bears, whose species name is Ursus arctos arctos (Bear bear bear)
Come see the famous The The River River in Iowa!
Also, the Yarra River in Melbourne, named by settlers after the Wurundjeri word for river or rapids. Their actual name for that particular river was Birrarung.
the great nation of barbecue area https://youtube.com/watch?v=gYtz4hH2z7A
