funny place names in your country/language!
Hi all!
I'm just curious to know if there are funny place names with an ambigious meaning in your country?!
The following places are located in Germany, and yes it's not a joke, they do exist - okay, some of those place names have been changed recently because of...well, just guess!
Pinkler - engl. Pee-er
Killer
Darmstadt - bowel town
Zuckerfabrik - sugar factory
Luschendorf - bore village
Oberhammer - german expr. for "that beats everything" or "cool"
Großvargula - untranslateable
Krätze - scabies
Puffendorf - brothel village
Wichsenstein - well...
Betteldorf - begging village
Schlangenbad - snake pool
But there are also other countries' names or place names in Germany, like...
Brasilien - Brasilia
Norwegen - Norway
Ägypten - Egypt
England
Kalifornien
Texas
Outside Trondheim in Norway there is a village called Hell!
And it gets worse....on the railway station there is a sign saying "Gods expedition" (Older Norwegian for "goods expedition = cargo handling office).
Here you can see it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell%2C_Norway
Another funny Norwegian place name: Å (means river, though).
BTW "Hell" is ambitious in Norwegian too, but not in the bad sense. It just mean "luck"! ("Hell" is "helvete" i Norwegian).
Oops, I meant "ambiguous", not "ambitious"!
BTW the Norwegian Miss universe, Mona Grudt, listed herself as a native of Hell!
Those German ones are pretty funny! I don't know why I never saw the name Darmstadt in that light, it's pretty obvious!
--Outside Trondheim in Norway there is a village called Hell!--
LOL, this one is great - especially in combination with the expression "gods expedition"! Sounds like the title of a Hollywood movie...
--BTW the Norwegian Miss universe, Mona Grudt, listed herself as a native of Hell!--
We all are able to guess the reaction an english-speaking interviewer must have had, when she said: "I'm a native of Hell! And I'm proud of it!" LOL
Lickey End — a village in England very near to where I live.
This isn't quite the same thing, but there's also a village called Woolsfadisworthy, but it's actually pronounced 'woolsery'.
Il y a un village qui s'appelle <Y> en France.
"Il y a un village qui s'appelle <Y> en France. "
Yes and the last letter is mute! LOL!
Some names in Brazil:
Rio de Janeiro = January River
Minas Gerais = General Mines
Recife = Reef
Espírito Santo = Holy Spirit
Ubatuba = Big Rock
Pará = Sea
Bahia = Bay
Sergipe = Crab river
Paraíba = River with no fish
Uberaba = Clear Water
Goiás = Identical
Ipanema = Lousy water
Porto Seguro = Safe Harbor
« Guest » : « "Il y a un village qui s'appelle <Y> en France. " Yes and the last letter is mute! LOL! »
Non, heureusement pour Y le <y> se prononce : [i].
En revanche, il y a un autre village qui s'appelle <Eu>, mais il n'y a qu'une seule voyelle : [ø] = [2]. (Ça permet de ne pas le confondre avec <eu> = [y] qui est le participe passé du verbe <avoir>).
;)
In New Zealand
*Dannevirke
*Invercargill
*Whakapapa (wh=f so its fakapapa) unsure if there's a whakamama (fakamama)
-- Guest : « "Il y a un village qui s'appelle <Y> en France. "
Yes and the last letter is mute! LOL! --
haha, this one was good! I remember dimly that there are also scandinavian towns with one-letter names, but I don't know for sure.
In the german-speaking countries, the shortest place names are "Au","Ay", "Ed", "Ob" and "Oy".
But I really had a good laugh when I saw the following:
"Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu"
this is the Maori name for an hill in southern New Zealand and it is one of the longest placenames in the world.
see on:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu
There is a Croatian island in the Adriatic Sea, called <Krk>
it somehow looks funny because there is no vowel in it ....although I know that the letter <R> may have a vowel character in Croatian.
''There is a Croatian island in the Adriatic Sea, called <Krk> ''
It's pronounced like English name Kirk, with a difference of R being alveolar.