Conference thebay::joyoflex

    There must be towns named Washington in 20 states, plus D. C., and
    the state of, plus Mt. Washington, Washington Crossing State Park
    (PA or NJ - where he crossed the Delaware, plus who knows what else.
    
    No wonder he slept in so many places!
    
    -bs
    

    
    And don't forget the town of George in the state of Washington.

    re .0
    
    Seems I recall there being another town in Pa. called Blue Balls
    The story went that you:
    	Start with "Bird" in hand, went on to Intercourse, and through
    	Paradise to get to Blue Balls...
    
    Boy, those PennDutch sure were imaginative when it came (no pun
    intended) to naming their towns!

    One of my favorites is Chagrin Falls, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland.
    It's located on the Chagrin River, and the main street is Chagrin
    Boulevard.
    
    Maine has other "foreign cities" besides Norway and Poland.  There's
    a famous road sign with arrows pointing to at least six different
    countries, including Mexico, Peru, and Denmark.

re: .3

You forgot to Mount Joy in the process...

(Sorry, couldn't resist!)

-- Sam

    Speaking of Pennsylvania, many people find the names Blue Knob and
    Scalp Level amusing.

    Not far from Intercourse and Blue Ball [note: no s] is the town
    of Fertility, Pa.

    Flushing, NY

    
    Hell, Michigan
    
    Moscow, Maine
    
    Rome, and Mesopotamia, Ohio
    

    Hell fer Sartin, Kentucky

    
    	Climax, North Carolina (They have a problem keeping a sign
    				that states, "Now entering Climax")
    
    	North, South Carolina

    Double Trouble, New Jersey.  Which is definitely not Buena, New
    Jersey.  But the latter is pronounced "bo - ee' - na", not the
    same as the Spanish word for "good" (bway'na).
    
    Dave Van Ronk (the folksinger) did a song called (I think) Garden
    State Stomp whose lyrics were all places in New Jersey, a state
    which has six different Washington Townships, plus a Washington
    Borough.

        I've never heard that Van Ronk song -- do you have a copy of
        the record (was it ever recorded?)?
        
        Tom

    A single major highway connects several towns in a striaght line
    through a canyon in South Dakota: the towns of Lead (pronounced
    "Leed"), Deadwood, and Hot Springs.  A favorite sign to hang on
    the back of honeymooning newlyweds' cars is "Hot Springs tonight--
    Deadwood tomorrow".

    NOAA has a cartographic division which registers all place names
    in the united States.  Periodically, communities petition this division
    to change names.  Whether or not they succeed depends upon (1) the
    desires of the local population, (2) "propriety" of the change,
    and (3) "authenticy" or local historical significance of the change.
    
    Shitorbust, New Mexico, disappeared several years ago.  A mountain
    range near the Grand Tetons used to be called Maggies' Nipples;
    now it's called Swelling Breast.  Anyone remember any other name
    changes?

    re:.14,
    Sorry, I don't have a copy of the Van Ronk song.  I don't know if
    it's on record.  Probably, but it's equally likely to be on some
    obscure disk, like a concert, or on a hard-to-get label.

re.: 16
Camel's Hump, the mountain in Vermont just south of Waterbury, used to be 
called Lion's Rump.  I think we lost something in the change...

Larry

    ...that the earliest name for Camel's Hump was the french, "Le lion
    couchant"  (referring to the pose a lion strikes when lying down
    with the hind legs tucked under).

    
    how about 
    
          west new york, new jersey?

    Out at the other end of Route 2 in Mass, there's "North South New
    Salem".  I don't know if there's a South South New Salem, etc...

    Reminds me of the fictional Old New Litchridge.

    If my memory hasn't let me down, East Aurora, N.Y. is about 90
    miles west of Aurora, N.Y.
    
    -John

    Personal faves...
    
    	Jersey Shore PA.  (which is somewhere in the middle of PA)
    
    	Sandy Hook, Conn. (also in the middle of the state.)  (and nowhere
    		NEAR Sandy Hook, NJ)
    
    
    I've also heard a myth of a newpaper editor who sent a reporter
    to Hohokus NJ to get ANY story which could be run under the headline
    "Hokus-Pokus in Hohokus"
    
    
    ...diane
    
    
    re: Dave Van Ronk - GREAT tune!  I've heard it a few times on the
    Sunday Morning Folk Show on WNEW here in NYC.  If you are REALLY
    desperate for a copy, you might try contacting the DJ who runs that
    show - he might be able to provide label info, etc...:
    
    	Pete Fornatale - Mixed Bag
    	WNEW-FM
    	655 3rd Ave

How about Mass. towns, where Northboro is west of Southboro, and
Westboro is south (southEAST if you push it) of Northboro?

-Mike

    ... and then there's East Northport, New York, which is due south
    of Northport.

    No joking, the new rentors of my house are coming from
    
    	Philidelphia St.
    	Indiana, Pennsylvania
    
    !Eric

    Several years ago, the town of East Paterson, New Jersey changed
    its name to Elmwood Park.  Their motive was to disassociate their
    town (a fairly well-to-do community) from Paterson (a typically
    rundown midsize city).
    
    Not soon after, it was suggested in a city council meeting that
    Paterson should change its name to West Elmwood Park.
    
    					andrew

    Nevertire
    Goonoo Goonoo
    Tom Groggin
    Pullabooka
    
    Most are in New South Wales, itself a pretty weird name.
    
    How about some more names from some more subversive foreigners??
    
    - Giles

    re: .28 - how about the case of Walpole Prison, in Walpole, MA?
    
    They recently renamed it to "Cedar Junction" or something like that
    because of all the negative connotations that had latched on to
    "Walpole", a not-very-nice place.   But the town is still "Walpole".
    
    It would probably be much more effective to rename the town in this
    case (and probably much more expensive as well)....
                                                   
    MP

    Indiana boasts a town named Gnawbone and the twin metropoli of Pinhook
    and Pinola.
    
    Earl Wajenberg

Then, of course, there's Long Island, Kansas
(Kansas being a dry state in many ways).

    There's also the twon of Eleva, Illinois.
    
    The town Feed Store had a giant grain elevator which was being
    repainted: the store's name was "Hanson's Elevator Company" (or
    something like that).  The painters knocked off for lunch after
    completing "Eleva" on the freshly-whitewashed tower.  The agent
    for the Bureau of Surveying (which I think now is NOAA) chose that
    moment to come through town, and duly recorded the name for the
    maps...

    > Then, of course, there's Long Island, Kansas

    Is that anywhere near Manhattan, Kansas?
    
    					andrew

    Moscow, Idaho used to be known as Hog Heaven, Idaho.
    
    (Now it is known as the Dried Pea and Lentil Capital of the World,
    but not as an official town name.)

    re:.12
    
    There's also a Climax in Michigan. As the joke goes---
    
    Q: How do you reach Climax?
    A: Take I-94 west to exit 88...
    
    
    Little do people realize that Massachusetts has *two* Southboro(ugh)s.
    One is obvious; what is the second one?
    
    --- jerry

    Maybe the other is south of Middleborough ?
    
    /Eric

    re:.37
    
    No, it's...
    
    Sudbury

    Re: .37
    
    I realize that Southborough and Sudbury have the same literal meaning,
    but could you give us the language derivations?
    

    re: -.1
    
    maybe this is a part??  South in French is SUD....

Are we forgetting (or omitting by consensus) that apocryphal favorite:

	Gelatinous, Mass.

or

Looknohands, MA

    Donhavno, MO

    Noahs, Ark.
    Eeniemeenieminee, MO
    Doremefasol, LA
    Feeling, Ill.
    Outside, IN
    Friendly, MS
    Either, OR
    
    Doyouwant, Samoa?
    
    -bs

    re:.39
    
    The same method of slurring that produces "sin-jun" from "St. John"
    is responsible for "Southborough" becoming "Sudbury".
    
    --- jerry

    What is the most common place name in North America?
    
    Springfield
    

    West, Texas. That's the name. Also the location.

    According to an article in _Maledicta_ (a journal devoted to
    the best of bad words) there is also:
    
    	Bloody Dick Creek, Idaho
    
    an eponym for a settler of British ancestry who settled by the
    creek.

    As a native of Ware, Mass. I'm sometimes involved in 
    
    'Where were you born?'
    "Ware"
    "Yes, Where?"
    "Ware !"
    
    Tiresome.

    That's what you get for not pronouncing your 'aitches'.
    
    I get so tired of talking to people who can't tell me which witch
    is which :) :) :)

    --bonnie

    People who live in Weare, N.H. have the same problem.  As a transplant
    from Mass. I thought the town was pronounced like _wee-er_.  I've
    been corrected...it's pronounced _ware_, just like the one in Mass.

    So much for phonetic pronunciation in English!

Re. .49:

Remember when Chub Peabody used to be governor of Massachusettes?  The joke 
going around at the time was something like:

	Question: What three towns are named after the governor?

	Answer:  Peabody, Marblehead, and Athol.

Larry

    Re: .49 and .51:
    
    The town of Weare, N.H. consists of the villages of North Weare, Weare,
    South Weare, and Chase Village. This all seems trivial, except that the
    inhabitants of North Weare have the habit of telling outsiders that
    they live in No. Weare, which they delight in pronouncing as "nowhere." 

    G'day,
    
    Some more (belated) towns from downunder -
    
    Wagga Wagga
    Wooloomooloo
    Bucketty (and a few miles up the track Broke)
    Putty
    Goodiwindi
    Orange (where they grow apples)
    Coonabarrabran
    1187     (in Queensland the town name is a number - Can't remember
    the number so 1187 will do :-) )                        
    Gularganbone
    Cockatoo
    Dubbo
    Mudgee
    Hat Head
    Maelstom
    Sawtell
    Iron knob
    Rum Jungle
    Wagerup
    
    
    and some apocryphal ones
    Kickatinalong
    Whykikamookow
    Wheelabarraback
    
    
    and I see there's a Melbourne Fla
    
    Djw
    
     
    

    
    There's a Melbourne in Hertfordshire too. Just down the road from
    Cambridge, near Royston.
    
    Paul V

    This comes late, as well, but oh well....
    
    North East, Pennsylvania, which is, of course, in the northWESTernmost
    corner of the state....
                                                                 -John.

    
    I once knew a girl from Bucksnort, Kentucky...........
    
    aaron
    

re: .57

Are you sure there's an "r" in Bucksnort?

    	May have been mentioned, but:
    
    	Russia, Ohio	(pronounced Roosha)
    
    	Temperance, Michigan
    
    	Scott

    	Sorry, but I forgot about:
    
    	Big Ugly, West Virginia
    
    	Scott (No, I don't make these up)

    Six Mile Bottom, Cambridgeshire (UK).  
    
    It used to make me chuckle as a kid!
    
    John

    
    Sandy Balls, in Hampshire, England.
    
    Honest !
    
    IP

    In County Tipperary, Ireland there's a village called PollnaMuca. This
    is its Irish name which is still used. Poll (pronounced powl)
    translates to hole, Muc (pronunced muck) translates to pig, and the
    conjunction "na" indicates possesion. I'll leave it to you to work out
    the literal translation.

    This story may be untrue, but it was told to me as though it were
    not:
    
    Two friends were driving through central Texas. As they approached the
    town of Mexia, they got into an argument over the pronunciation. The
    truth is, that Mexia is pronounced muh-HAY-a. Now, anyone who knows
    any Spanish will tell you that the proper pronunciation is muh-HEE-a.
    (Let it be noted that no Texan would even think of suggesting that it
    might be pronounced MEX-ee-a.) So, anyway, the fact is that the
    "correct" pronunciation, muh-HAY-a, seems dead wrong to many people.
    
    The two friends had stopped at a Dairy Queen (a fast-food joint, for
    you Brits and Poms) and were continuing their argument over their
    burgers and fries. Eventually, one of them suggested that the best
    way to resolve the issue was to ask a local citizen. So when the
    waitress came to give them their bill, one of them asked her:
    
    "Excuse me, ma'am, but my friend and I are having this argument, see,
    over how you pronounce the name of this place and we were wondering
    if you could tell us how YOU pronounce it..."
    
    To which she replied, 

    "Why, Honey, I just call it DAY-er-ree KWANE, same's ever one else."
    

    One of my friends swears that this story is true. It's such a good
    story I like to believe him.
    While walking through town (In the U.K.) he was hailed by a couple of
     young guys in a beat up VW camper van. They turned out to be Aussies,
    on the typical round the world tour that all Australians seem to
    do.
    They wanted directions to the town of Looga-borooga, which sounds
    rather like an aboriginal settlement in the Oz outback, but nothing
    like anywhere in England. My friend suggested that they had got
    the wrong name (or wrong continent), but they were insistent that
    they had an address in Looga-borooga, where they were to meet some
    friends. My friend asked to see the address : the town they were
    looking for was

    loughborough   (luth-burra)

	A friend, Serafino Salvatore Perra, (Sal) told me this story about
  an event in his recent family history.   His uncle Luigi, having an
  intense desire to visit his brother's family in America, wrote Sal's
  dad and inquired how to get to the American Perra's abode.  There 
  ensued a flurry of letters, and Uncle Luigi embarked on the ocean
  liner which would get him to Boston.  He had the directions how to
  get to Sal's house clutched tightly in his hand as he entered the
  subway.  He got to Park Street station OK, but had to change trains
  there.  He waited and waited for a train with the right destination
  board, but none came.  He got anxious; perhaps he wasn't in the right
  place for the particular train he wanted, so he approached a gentleman
  in uniform and inquired (in his best Italian) for the train to Sal's 
  town.  The starter was puzzled by the fluent Italian, so Luigi just
  kept repeating the place-name in his instructions: "Revvera Bahtch,
  Revvera Bahtch" in ever-louder tones.  No telling where this would
  have ended, but Luigi (finally) saw a train approaching with the right
  destination board, boarded it, and eventually got to Sal's house OK.
  The town he was looking for, of course, was...

	Revere Beach

    Re .x:
>   friends. My friend asked to see the address : the town they were
>   looking for was

>   loughborough   (luth-burra)
		    ^^^^
    Really???  for all of the years I lived in the UK I thought that
    it was "luff-burra" .... just curious.

    Jim

    I've heard a story of the rustic dweller who travelled to Dublin
    (our capital city) for a day's shopping. He was a bit anxious about
    using the public transport, and was told by his cosmopolitan friends to
    observe the natives in action and copy them. Armed with this advice, he
    hopped on his first city bus and took a seat. When the lady beside him
    was approached by the bus conductor he heard her say, "Sallynoggin from
    Stoneybatter" as she handed over 50 pence. Surprised at this, but
    relying on his friends advice, he spouted "Tom Murphy from Killarney"
    as he proffered his money.
    
    
    Sallynogin (pronounced as is) and Stoneybatter ( pronounced stoney
    baher) are both location names in Dublin.
    
    Noel

    Re: .69
    
    Just where in Ireland is Tom Murphy, and how far is it from Killarney?

    Another story from my hometown.
    
    An American tourist drives into the main square and directs the
    following one-liner to one of the locals...'Hey sunny...is this
    the a$$-hole of Ireland'?
    
    To which the local replied...
    
    'Yes...and you must be the sh!t passing thru' !!!  :-)

    There's a couple of little villages in the Cotswold Hills in
    Gloucestershire (UK) not far from Stow on the Wold (where they say
    the wind blows cold) called Upper and Lower Slaughter ... collectively
    The Slaughters.
    
    I've never been to them, although I have passed by them many, many
    times ... I haven't been able to pluck up the courage!

    There are lots of interesting place names here in Canada too, but
    one of the most famous is in Newfoundland, called Come by Chance.
    
    Stuart

    In Cheshire, England, are two little villages called Upper Peover and 
    Lower Peover, I won't tell you the correct pronounciation as saying
    saying it wrong is far more fun.
    
    
    In Austria there is a place called Wank, everybody seems to think this
    is funny but I don't know why!

    I've always been partial to Scaggsville, Maryland.  I imagine a
    beauty contest being held there.

    
    Manteca (=Lard), California 
    
    Salsipuedes (=roughly, "Get out while the gettings good"), California

    My favorite is Wooloomooloo, a suburb of Sydney, Australia.

    G'day,
    
     Wooloomooloo is pronounced (roughly) woolahmahloo
    
    
    Goonoo Goonoo is also in Australia and pronounced Gunny Gahnoo
    
    
    There is of course 
    Piddletrenthide in the UK..
    
    
    
     derek
    

    Newtownmountkennedy
    

    Then there's the thoroughfare in a VERY posh neighborhood on the
    Peninsula near San Francisco:  Alameda de los Pulgas.

    On the west shore of Lake Cayuga in the Finger Lakes District of New
    York State there is a road called  Swamp College Road.
    On the East Shore, there is a road called Bird Cemetary Road.
    
    A friend in New Hampshire lives on Purgatory Road.
    
    And a house in Trumansburg, NY sports the sign "Appropriate Manor"
    
    ...must be a nice way to live.
    

    Emerson Hospital in Concord, Massachusetts, is on the "Old Road to Nine
    Acre Corner".  That's a bit long for the street sign, which shortens it
    to "Old Road to NAC".

In Keene NH, the road next to the cemetary on South Main is called Silent
Way. It's appropriately marked, "Dead End."

-Perry

I have some friends who used to live in Anandale, VA, on Private Lane.  
Private Lane was not private; it was a public street.  Why was it named 
"Private Lane"?  Well, the other streets around it were name Corporal Lane, 
Sergeant Lane, Captain Lane, etc.

Clay  

    	It's nice to hear that Private Lane got his promotion, though, and
    nice that they were naming roads after him even in his humble estate.
    In France they only name roads after generals.  ;-)

Well, better late than never I suppose.  This is in reply to a much earlier
note.  Missouri, in addition to having a Mexico, has Cuba, Haiti,
Washington, and, of course, Kansas City.  My favorite, however, is Devil's
Elbow, between Rolla and Fort Leonard Wood.

    Good Grief, Idaho.
    
    Also, New Hampshire contains both a Derry and a Londonderry
    (two places, not one and the same as in N. Ireland).

what about Belchertown (MA)

and Hamilton!, OH (yes, the ! is part of the name)

>and Hamilton!, OH (yes, the ! is part of the name)

Shouldn't that be "Hamilton, OH!" ?

    I believe Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, is the only US town with an apostrophe,
    or was until the federal map police took it away.
    

    In Quebec, there is "St. Louis de Haha!"

I was looking at a map of Uxbridge, Massachusetts, and I saw a street
named Wong Way.