This is true? - Geographic oddities that defy conventional wisdom

[jon daly]

https://uk.style.yahoo.com/6-british-towns-villages-had-063000921.html

Here are some towns in the UK that had to change their name.

This was worth clicking on for the Welsh signage.

[thenetwork]

PETA = PITA.

[Road Hog]

I may have mentioned it before, but Taiwan, formerly known as Formosa, is partly antipodean to the Argentinian province of Formosa. Formosa on the antipodes of Formosa, how great.

If this is true, this is a good one.

[CNGL-Leudimin]

It is. These days I double check all things due to all those fake news, however I already knew this fact for a long while now. Most of Taiwan's antipodes are in Paraguay, but the Northwestern section of Formosa island, including the capital Taibei, is in fact antipodean to Formosa province in Argentina.


Source for the map and the fact (In Spanish).

[english si]

The two folks who I've seen use that French loan-word, "bien pensant," both have British backgrounds. Is it more common to use French loanwords across the pond than in the US?

Yes. For the same reason why we Brits spell it colour, meat terms are in French-origin (compare animal names which are Germanic-origin), and the civil service would prefer the UK as a continental colony than run an independent nation - the long-standing love affair of the English chattering classes with France that dates from 1066 when the entire chattering classes were replaced (with the existing) with French-speakers.

Thus, chattering class stuff like how to spell things (we even added French-style spellings to words that weren't of French origin), or political/cultural concepts, are often in French if the French had a term for it / the word came from there.

[kphoger]

The two folks who I've seen use that French loan-word, "bien pensant," both have British backgrounds. Is it more common to use French loanwords across the pond than in the US?

Yes. For the same reason why we Brits spell it colour, meat terms are in French-origin (compare animal names which are Germanic-origin), and the civil service would prefer the UK as a continental colony than run an independent nation - the long-standing love affair of the English chattering classes with France that dates from 1066 when the entire chattering classes were replaced (with the existing) with French-speakers.

Thus, chattering class stuff like how to spell things (we even added French-style spellings to words that weren't of French origin), or political/cultural concepts, are often in French if the French had a term for it / the word came from there.

I've always thought it ironic that the British and the French are supposed to hate each other, yet the British are so fond of using French words.  It has also always interested me that the British pronounce some French words better than we Americans do, but some others worse than we do.

[english si]

I've always thought it ironic that the British and the French are supposed to hate each other

It's more the long-termness of it all. And with the plebian classes, its more about dislike of upper classes (who were once French) than anything against the Frogs themselves. TV Tropes accurately describes the relationship as Vitriolic Best Buds and, within that, as an Old Married Couple.

[kphoger]

I've always thought it ironic that the British and the French are supposed to hate each other

It's more the long-termness of it all. And with the plebian classes, its more about dislike of upper classes (who were once French) than anything against the Frogs themselves. TV Tropes accurately describes the relationship as Vitriolic Best Buds and, within that, as an Old Married Couple.

I just remember, when we were on vacation in Paris back in the 90s, several of the people there snubbed us–till they learned we were Americans and not Brits.  Then they were as friendly as could be.  I wonder if that situation has reversed at all, what with it being sort of popular these days to hate America.

[abefroman329]

I've always thought it ironic that the British and the French are supposed to hate each other

It's more the long-termness of it all. And with the plebian classes, its more about dislike of upper classes (who were once French) than anything against the Frogs themselves. TV Tropes accurately describes the relationship as Vitriolic Best Buds and, within that, as an Old Married Couple.

I just remember, when we were on vacation in Paris back in the 90s, several of the people there snubbed us–till they learned we were Americans and not Brits.  Then they were as friendly as could be.  I wonder if that situation has reversed at all, what with it being sort of popular these days to hate America.

I find it a little surprising that the average French person couldn't distinguish between a "British" accent and an American one.

The frostiest reception I've ever gotten in Europe was shortly before the invasion of Iraq in 2003 - and that includes my trip to England in late November 2016 (which might have been the nicest I've ever been treated as an American, oddly enough).

[jon daly]

The two folks who I've seen use that French loan-word, "bien pensant," both have British backgrounds. Is it more common to use French loanwords across the pond than in the US?

Yes. For the same reason why we Brits spell it colour, meat terms are in French-origin (compare animal names which are Germanic-origin), and the civil service would prefer the UK as a continental colony than run an independent nation - the long-standing love affair of the English chattering classes with France that dates from 1066 when the entire chattering classes were replaced (with the existing) with French-speakers.

Thus, chattering class stuff like how to spell things (we even added French-style spellings to words that weren't of French origin), or political/cultural concepts, are often in French if the French had a term for it / the word came from there.

Thanks. Could you do me a favour and let me ask you what that flag is in your avatar. I see St. Andrew's cross and (I think) St. Patrick's cross. But I don't see St. George's cross and am not sure what the green is for below the centre of the flag.

I like the phrase bien pensant. It is a refreshing alternative to PC, if I understand the phrase correctly.

[Bruce]

It is. These days I double check all things due to all those fake news, however I already knew this fact for a long while now. Most of Taiwan's antipodes are in Paraguay, but the Northwestern section of Formosa island, including the capital Taibei, is in fact antipodean to Formosa province in Argentina.

Your use of "Taibei" brings up another interesting thing: place names and how they are translated (or transliterated/Romanized) into English and other languages.

I can't speak for Taiwan's situation, but in South Korea the Romanization system was revised in 2000 and created new spellings for various cities. Pusan became Busan and Inchon/Inch'ŏn is now Incheon.

China switched their system to Pinyin in 1979, so Peking became Beijing, Sian became Xian, etc. Several Chinese cities have also lost their western names in favor of traditional names, e.g. Canton City in Canton Province is now Guangzhou in Guangdong Province.

[english si]

I just remember, when we were on vacation in Paris back in the 90s, several of the people there snubbed us

That's Paris - they do it with the country bumpkins from France too.

till they learned we were Americans and not Brits.  Then they were as friendly as could be.

That's not friendliness towards the US, but expectation - Parisians expect British tourists to speak French, but set the bar lower for Americans.

My South African/Rhodesian neighbour (lived in the UK all his adult life), when in Paris, speaks Afrikaans to natives, and then they 'stumble' upon English as a shared language.

I wonder if that situation has reversed at all, what with it being sort of popular these days to hate America.

Macron is certainly trying to boost his dismal approval ratings by attacking the US. However, it's not working.

I read the other day that the Yank-bashing of the French is as the USA is the king, and thus needs its head cut off.

Thanks. Could you do me a favour and let me ask you what that flag is in your avatar. I see St. Andrew's cross and (I think) St. Patrick's cross. But I don't see St. George's cross and am not sure what the green is for below the centre of the flag.

You have your Andrew and George mixed up. Ditch the jocks - I made it around the time of the Scottish referendum and I was sick to my high teeth with them. I'm now less for Scottish Independence, though still support helping them leave to make their own mistakes. The Green is from the Welsh flag. The dragon I made smaller and put where the crosses intersect (the common joke about Wales not being on the UK flag).

I've made a better one with the crosses of David, George and Piran (so no Irish - which will be the case if the Irish President's and British Prime Minister's violations of the Good Friday agreement get approved by Parliament. The 'we keep the peace in Europe' EU have already approved this peace-breaking agreement as they want to annex, Crimea-like, Northern Ireland or gain the whole UK as a colony), but haven't been bothered to upload it.

[jon daly]

Sorry about that, si. I got my flags mixed up.

[abefroman329]

I've made a better one with the crosses of David, George and Piran (so no Irish - which will be the case if the Irish President's and British Prime Minister's violations of the Good Friday agreement get approved by Parliament. The 'we keep the peace in Europe' EU have already approved this peace-breaking agreement as they want to annex, Crimea-like, Northern Ireland or gain the whole UK as a colony), but haven't been bothered to upload it.

Maybe I'm not following you, but I thought the most recent Brexit deal meant that there would NOT be border checks for travelers traveling between ROI and the UK?

[bing101]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNUomfuWuA8

[english si]

Maybe I'm not following you, but I thought the most recent Brexit deal meant that there would NOT be border checks for travelers traveling between ROI and the UK?

Border checks for travellers travelling between RoI and the UK have nothing to do with EU membership or Brexit. The Common Travel Area dates from 1923 (pre-dating, and nothing to do with, the Treaty of Rome).

The problem is the customs border between GB and NI (or as the EU terms them 'UK' and 'UK-NI') created by the Withdrawal Agreement. Unlike a border between NI and RoI, it is a direct violation of the Good Friday Agreement to not accept that NI is fully part of the UK. NI is able to diverge from GB (even fully, subject to a referendum), but only with the consent of the NI Assembly. The consent has not, and will not, be given as both communities have to consent, and the Unionist plurality (40-39, with 11 other) will not consent to what they see as a break up of the United Kingdom.

Lord Trimble, who co-authored the GFA and won a Noble Peace Prize for it, says: It is clear to me that the Irish side in the Brexit negotiations is undermining the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, riding roughshod over its terms and violating its spirit. As this research note by Policy Exchange observes, there is a genuine risk that Northern Ireland will end up as part of an effective EU protectorate, without the say-so of the Northern Ireland Assembly. This would be an appalling breach of the principle of consent, which runs through the Agreement.

Oh, and currently (and illegally under EU law while the UK is still a member state due to the Common Fisheries Policy) the Irish Government has banned Northern Irish vessels from fishing in its waters - it's basically the sort of hard border that they supposedly see as a violation of peace. If there's a hard Brexit, the Irish Government, who supposedly represent the people who'll lose most from it (as they, unlike the UK, won't be able to make trade deals with the 80% of the world economy outside the EU's protectionist racket, in order to mitigate the loss of a major trading partner), and their hard line will be a major factor in why it happened - they and the EU 'having their interests' have basically told the UK that either the whole country is now an EU colony, or the EU annexes Northern Ireland. And the House of Commons refuses to accept that the EU's deal is in any way acceptable because of precisely that.

[Brandon]

Maybe I'm not following you, but I thought the most recent Brexit deal meant that there would NOT be border checks for travelers traveling between ROI and the UK?

Border checks for travellers travelling between RoI and the UK have nothing to do with EU membership or Brexit. The Common Travel Area dates from 1923 (pre-dating, and nothing to do with, the Treaty of Rome).

The problem is the customs border between GB and NI (or as the EU terms them 'UK' and 'UK-NI') created by the Withdrawal Agreement. Unlike a border between NI and RoI, it is a direct violation of the Good Friday Agreement to not accept that NI is fully part of the UK. NI is able to diverge from GB (even fully, subject to a referendum), but only with the consent of the NI Assembly. The consent has not, and will not, be given as both communities have to consent, and the Unionist plurality (40-39, with 11 other) will not consent to what they see as a break up of the United Kingdom.

Lord Trimble, who co-authored the GFA and won a Noble Peace Prize for it, says: It is clear to me that the Irish side in the Brexit negotiations is undermining the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, riding roughshod over its terms and violating its spirit. As this research note by Policy Exchange observes, there is a genuine risk that Northern Ireland will end up as part of an effective EU protectorate, without the say-so of the Northern Ireland Assembly. This would be an appalling breach of the principle of consent, which runs through the Agreement.

Oh, and currently (and illegally under EU law while the UK is still a member state due to the Common Fisheries Policy) the Irish Government has banned Northern Irish vessels from fishing in its waters - it's basically the sort of hard border that they supposedly see as a violation of peace. If there's a hard Brexit, the Irish Government, who supposedly represent the people who'll lose most from it (as they, unlike the UK, won't be able to make trade deals with the 80% of the world economy outside the EU's protectionist racket, in order to mitigate the loss of a major trading partner), and their hard line will be a major factor in why it happened - they and the EU 'having their interests' have basically told the UK that either the whole country is now an EU colony, or the EU annexes Northern Ireland. And the House of Commons refuses to accept that the EU's deal is in any way acceptable because of precisely that.

Sounds like quite the clusterfuck and an opened can of worms.  Would it have been better if the "stay" side had won?  Or is this a better option, to get all this stuff out in the open?

[english si]

Would it have been better if the "stay" side had won?

The Irish border wouldn't have been an issue. Nor would the EU's desire to punish the UK as heretics, because we voted to leave - but that's the same issue - the entire reason why there would be a non-soft border between Ireland and the UK (there's already a border on the island of Ireland, and the Swiss-EU border, for example, is really very soft despite Switzerland being non-EU, not in the Single Market or Customs Union, etc) is because the EU needed a way to undermine the UK as a warning to others who might want to leave the Empire.

But the issues that lead to a referendum, and a Leave win wouldn't have been addressed, and the EU would have seen a Remain win erroneously as public support in the UK to move faster with 'ever closer union', so the issues the UK public has with the EU would have been added to and increased.

Or is this a better option, to get all this stuff out in the open?

Everyone is sick of it, but it's a bit like we've lanced a boil and its just taking a lot of time to clean up the mess from that - which was there all along, just kept trapped, getting worse. The country is bitterly divided, and has been for a good 30+ years, but we've only really talked about it the last 3. It still needs more time, but we're not letting it fester anymore, nor are we having to resort to destruction rather than dialogue in order to be heard.

If it weren't for the referendum, Nigel Farage would still be a thing, rather than a soon-to-be has-been that he'll be if the UK leaves without a deal. If the mainstream parties hadn't offered referenda to the electorate on the EU since 2005 (Labour renegaded and the Lib-Dem/Conservative coalition agreement 'strangely' dropped various anti-establishment stuff that was in both parties manifestos), Farage would have been in Government at some point, much to the UK's detriment.

The UK is one of just a handful of countries in Europe without 'far-right' parties polling highly now and that is entirely due to the referendum releasing that pressure. Austria and France had run off presidential elections between literal fascists and the eventual winner (in Austria they needed to redo it due to illegal spending by the non-fascist's campaign which won by less than 1%) - with the fascists having been the most popular candidate in the first round. Sweden's Government has struggled to have any political capital, with no confidence votes against it being successful, but then new Governments failing to get enough votes to be elected by Parliament - the two main blocks have 40% of the seats each, while the populist Swedish Democrats hold the rest, and neither block want to appeal to the SDs. Italy has a Government of the 'nationalist' League (slogan: 'Italians first') and populist MS5 - which means they aren't in Brussels' good books (and another Italian technocratic-coup is brewing) and so are being told they can't do what EU-nationalist (slogan: 'Europe first') Macron is set to do and breaking Eurozone budgetary rules to ease political tensions by buying off the populous.

[CNGL-Leudimin]

New England may have been at one point on the North coast of Black Sea. If this is true, Georgia wouldn't have been the only toponym to appear in both the USA and the former Soviet Union...

[bing101]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendship_Village,_Maryland#cite_note-NYCquickfacts-6


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zM9_MbaEoY4

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population_density
Friendship Village, Maryland has a density bigger than Manhattan

[CNGL-Leudimin]

You would never expect to find a city with the name of a President in... Iran. That country has also at least three villages named Shit.

[kphoger]

Atlanta is farther west than Detroit.

[Roadgeekteen]

You would never expect to find a city with the name of a President in... Iran. That country has also at least three villages named Shit.

Austria also has a village called fucking.

[kphoger]

You would never expect to find a city with the name of a President in... Iran. That country has also at least three villages named Shit.

Austria also has a village called fucking.

And there's a thread for that (and both of those are in there).

[Road Hog]

People don't think of Pennsylvania as a coastal state in the literal sense for the most part, but technically it is because the Delaware River estuary is at sea level up to at least Philadelphia.