On the Oregon side of the Columbia River there’s a rock formation that looks like an erect penis. The early settlers naturally named it Cock Rock. Later on, Mrs.-Grundy-types renamed it to be less “offensive” and it’s now the main feature of Rooster Rock State Park.
That’s an example of euphemism in action. Now I’ve run across another geographic name that just screams euphemism: Profanity Peak. It’s in northeast Washington, somewhere north of Spokane. I never heard of it before, even though I lived in Spokane for a fair number of years. It’s now in the news because they’ve found a new pack of wolves in the area.
So the question is, what was the original name of Profanity Peak?
The book is alternately colorful and very dry, with a lot of technical history of commissions. It does cover huge amounts of ground, figuratively and literally. He starts with U.S. place names and then expands to look at renaming in Israel, in disputed territories, and for astronomical objects and sites. I don’t know of anything else like it.
Rumor has it, the Bubbles in Acadia National Park were originally known as the Boobies. The story goes it was changed to be family friendly when the park opened.
The use of the word squaw in place names was banned a few years ago in Maine. In many cases it was replaced with the word moose. This is how Moose Bosom mountain, among others got it’s name.
I can’t now remember where I heard the story, so forgive me if it belongs to someone here, but I remember hearing of a tour group from a religious school of some sort (likely fundamentalist Christian, IIRC) touring a zoo or a historic plantation-type estate which feature peafowl. One of the teachers/chaperones took the tour guide (the person who I heard the story from) aside at the beginning to make sure they knew that they were to refer to the male peafowl as pea roosters at all times.
There is a Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge in northwest Missouri, which as far as I know, has retained that name. But there was a big truck stop at the exit, which respelled the name on its billboard as “Sqauw Creek Truck Stop” to avert the wrath of the shrill.
In Newfoundland, it was common to name tiny outport harbors with the designation “Hole”, and there are still a few of them, including Hibbs’ Hole. But it was thought prodent by modern Newfoundlanders to change “Mary’s Hole” to “Mary’s Cove”. Nevertheless, the town of Dildo remains an unchanged tourists curiosity.
Near Columbia, MO, there is a pretty cool formation called “The Devil’s Icebox”. When you look at it from above as you hike down to it, it looks like this.
Maybe it’s just my internal teenager, but when I saw that for the first time, I didn’t think “icebox”. I suspect the frontiersmen who first saw it might have named it something else, but I haven’t found anything online yet about the history of it. Anyone know?
“Female companionship” being itself a common euphemism – unless said 18th century explorers started lusting over moose because of long periods without the opportunity of having lengthy intellectual conversations with female companions.
To me it looks exactly like a fish. What did your internal teenager see, and more importantly, what would your internal teenager see if it looked at a moose?
Summersville Dam in West Virginia was originally going to be named after the nearest town, called Gad. The US Army Corp of Engineers, after briefly considering the name “Gad Dam,” reconsidered the idea and named it after the next closest town instead.
The Grand Teton mountain range would probably have been renamed if more people in the U.S. were fluent in French. Grand Tetons means “Big Tits” in French.
Not too long back, the town of Boring, OR formed a sister city relationship with the village of Dull, Scotland. This kind of thing should be encouraged. So Dildo should form an alliance with Twatt, Orkney and Twatt, Shetland. It would, of course, have to become double-headed to form a relationship satisfying to all parties.
Along those same lines, Intercourse, PA needs to hook up with Fucking, Austria, and, just to be safe, make it a three-way with Condom, France. That will leave Sexsmith, Alberta looking for a partner to forge a relationship with.
In Florida Bay (between the Florida Keys and the mainland) is an extensive area of shallows called Dildo Key Bank. I’ve fished there many times. And yes, there is a nearby Dildo Key. Supposedly this is named for the presence of a particular columnar cactus, but the cactus is found in lots of other places that seem to get along without that name. And really, it takes a very depraved mind to imagine such a use for a cactus. Except in the Pit, I guess.
Oh, not far away is another area of shallows called the First National Bank. Our early skinny-water fishermen were nothing if not creative coiners of names.
