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A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment
Hey, give them some credit, they have some diversity - there's place in europe, new place in europe, mispronounced place in europe, british ruler, catholic saint in spanish, american president, explorer related to america, and of course native american place/tribe, and random native american word
I think you're just describing how the etymology of most named places works.
In my country we name places after the surrounding area/environment. If it's an area with a big hill it will probably have a name to reflect that.
In the west coast we typically just used the name of the native tribe we killed in order to take the land.
Or the Spanish name from when the Spanish took the land a couple hundred years before.
In Oklahoma we just use the name of whatever tribe was forcibly relocated there. Although I know of one town that was named after a misspelling of an indian chief's name. The Apollo 14 CSM pilot lived there.
It was Europeans who named those places.
Yeah, people from that city or place moved there and named their new home after their old home. There's a very Dutch area of Michigan with many immigrants from the Netherlands still there. Want to know a couple town names? Holland and Zeeland.
And at some places they even reassign them new genders: The coat of arms of Berne Switzerland has a bear with a red penis. The US town: New Berne has a bear without a penis as a coat of arms. This means during the sea transport, Berne's bear outed themselves as Transgender and changed their sex to a lady-bear. (At least in my head cannon)
Almost certainly typical American Puritanism.
Wow, history is fascinating!
Meanwhile, Alexander the Great: You'll be me lol
"Americans" as in white Europeans?
My ancestors had great names for places. Then the white invaders killed most of us and named our land after their home.
I think this meme would be better suggested to say white European immigrants to America.
It would be amazing if they had arrived to the Americas and ask some natives about how they call a place and they said "this? This is New Amsterdam. We don't know what's Amsterdam but this is a newer version of it"
Memphis, Tennessee has entered the chat, y'all.
Along with Paris, Tennessee
I’m fairly sure Paris is Europe, not Africa.
Tennessee just loves being cultured. Did you know that Nashville has a full-scale replica of the Parthenon?
TIL it’s an ancient Egyption capital.
I mean haven't you seen the Bass Pro Shops Pyramid? It's obviously a tribute to ancient Egypt.
There's a lot of places in America that are named after native American tribes. I guess it's the least our predecessors could do considering how badly they fucked over and slaughtered the natives.
Sure but calling them Americans is likely, mostly, sorta true but also ignores an important fact... They were Europeans (or near descendants of) calling the places that. Often a place was named that place because it reminded them of home / to honor their parents home.
Some other notable examples: New Zealand
São Carlos, Brazil
Munich, Saskatchewan
Liverpool, New South Wales
Nueva York, Colombia
"Truth and Consequences, NM"
"Dinosaur, CO"
"City of Industry, CA"
"Why Not?, NC"
Upstate NY I went to Rome, Alexandria, Mexico, Florence, Norway, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Denmark, Coppenhagen, etc
EDIT: don't forget Swastika, NY
First read this as “naming new borns” and I was thinking of names like Paris or London, and all of the comments kind of made sense but were still slightly off. It was a fun, confusing time for me, until I scrolled up and re-read OP. Thanks for listening to my story.
But you forgot, we also have to mispronounce it then get mad if you don't mispronounce it the right way.
-someone that was born in New berlin, not "new berLIN", But "new BURlin".
How about naming the town after a city in Austria, but still the Roman way? Not just once, not just twice, but
(EDIT: I'm having déja vu after the last time had I brought up the several dozen Springfields)
A new place of europe.
There is a small village in Ohio named Buena Vista.
The locals pronounce it in a way that rhymes with Loona Fista
More evidence that Egypt is European.
insert flex tape meme slapping "New" onto the European name
Consequently people from New England are the only ones who know how half the current English place names are pronounced.
Hebron, Lebanon, and Bozrah CT have entered the chat.
Jamaica, VT has entered the chat
When you get to the south west it becomes a place in Mexico which is a place in Spain or straight up just named after a Spanish conquistador.
In Québec they were a bit more diverse and also named lots of places after saints.