Unusual Place Names

[Happy Monkey]

The railroad un-renamed the community.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

The railroad un-renamed the community.

lol

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

This confuses me. The names predate the station, but the railroad company named the community? HHS - what?

Where did that quote come from?
Before the railroad, there were no "communities", only farms and an occasional store, smithy or Meeting House.
The railroads built stations and gave them Welsh names from wherever, possibly farms, or roads named after places in Wales, the locals came from.
The "communities" grew up around and took the names of, the stations.

Some have changed, like Bala and Cynwyd were separate until the USPS decided they only needed one post office, which they called Bala-Cynwyd. As the two towns grew together they became one.

[Spexxvet]

Wolf said the names predate the station, the site that she cited said the railroad named the communitiy.

[dar512]

I am sorry to report that early Alaskans must not have had a sense of humor - otherwise there would be a town named Baked, AK.

[CzinZumerzet]

There is a Hell here in Somerset and Piddle Pool near Priddy, Cheddar, also near here. My brother lives near Curry in Mid Somerset but his village is Tintinhull, pronounced locally as Tintull. His village is on the edge of the Wetlands, known locally as the Badlands. My town is a legendary English joke as the UK Cellerites will attest. The town with one too many piers (peers) Weston-Super-Mare because jeffrey Archer is Lord Archer of WSM. Still.

[richlevy]

This weekend I drove past a new development of upscale houses ($800K+). That wasn't really unusual. What was unusual was the name of the development.

Announcing Slitting Mill, an enclave of four new homes nestled on generously sized 1 ½+ acre level homes sites in prestigious Edgmont Township, Delaware Co.

Slitting Mill? Does anyone do any kind of focus group testing. I mean, a lot rich people probably aren't afraid to get a little blood on their hands, but isn't this going a bit far?

I know in the U.K. there are some place names that reflect a bloody past, and even in the New England area of the U.S. you can find places like the Gibbet Hill Grill, but you would think that if there was an actual choice available, the developer would pick a different feature to highlight.

To be fair, the slitting that is referred to is a manufacturing term. Still, to me the name sounds like the title for a horror movie.

[xoxoxoBruce]

It's probably on Slitting Mill Road.

Slitting Mills were real important for making nails, so there were a lot of them, until nail making got more refined.

[DanaC]

If I saw that name I'd think it a manufacturing term. It wouldn't occur to me that it might be a ref to violence.

[Griff]

Something people from elsewhere (and here for that matter) might find unusual is the number of Pigeon place names in the US. The passenger pigeon was that important to peoples survival/economy.

[xoxoxoBruce]

One flock in 1866 in southern Ontario was described as being 1 mi (1.5 km) wide and 300 mi (500 km) long, took 14 hours to pass, and held in excess of 3.5 billion birds.

says Wiki. Can you imagine how much seed laden shit that flock would drop in a day.

[footfootfoot]

Hard to believe they're extinct and yet kudzu, zebra mussels, Japanese beetles and all other manner of shit species are alive and well.

Bastards.

BTW, RE Slitting? All I can think of is the juvenile term for a woman's "special purpose"

[xoxoxoBruce]

We gotta get you a woman,
It's like nothin' else to make you feel sure you're alive.
We gotta get you a woman,
We better get walkin', we're wastin' time talkin' now.

[footfootfoot]

truer words were never typen

[Carruthers]

Originally Posted by richlevy

This weekend I drove past a new development of upscale houses ($800K+). That wasn't really unusual. What was unusual was the name of the development.

Slitting Mill? Does anyone do any kind of focus group testing. I mean, a lot rich people probably aren't afraid to get a little blood on their hands, but isn't this going a bit far?

I know in the U.K. there are some place names that reflect a bloody past, and even in the New England area of the U.S. you can find places like the Gibbet Hill Grill, but you would think that if there was an actual choice available, the developer would pick a different feature to highlight.

To be fair, the slitting that is referred to is a manufacturing term. Still, to me the name sounds like the title for a horror movie.

There's a hamlet by the name of Slitting Mill, in Staffordshire, England. It isn't a name/term I've ever encountered in any context but the Slitting Mill website sheds a little light on the name.

Slitting Mill Village

Slitting Mill is a hamlet of fewer than 400 people, about one and a quarter miles west of Rugeley on the very edge of Cannock Chase. The village has also been known as Rolling Mill, and Stonehouse.
The name of Slitting Mill is derived from the type of work carried out along the stream where mills would split (slit) wood and metal.