# Place names that refer to a particular industry. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 22, 2010, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/place-names-that-refer-to-a-particular-industry/547616 "2010-07-22T17:14:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![mascaroni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dc4da7/32.png) [@mascaroni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mascaroni)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/place-names-that-refer-to-a-particular-industry/547616/21 "2010-07-22T20:28:08Z")
Denmark Street in Soho, London was known for music publishing. “…Those old die hards in Denmark Street start laughing at the keyboard players hollow, haunted eyes…” _Bitter Fingers_ -Elton John ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Skinley\_Von\_Clipper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@Baron\_Skinley\_Von\_Clipper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Skinley_Von_Clipper)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/place-names-that-refer-to-a-particular-industry/547616/22 "2010-07-22T20:46:03Z")
[Gropecunt](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gropecunt_Lane) Lane was used to refer to…err… well I don’t think I need to explain. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/place-names-that-refer-to-a-particular-industry/547616/23 "2010-07-22T20:47:50Z")
Seattle - Jet City ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/place-names-that-refer-to-a-particular-industry/547616/24 "2010-07-22T20:50:50Z")
> [@merrick](#): > > To expand on this - **Downing Street** generally refers to the Prime Minister (or his staff) in the same way as the American **White House**. > **Westminster** is politicians generally (not necessarily in the government) a bit like the American **Capitol Hill**. The Scottish equivalent is **Holyrood**. > **Whitehall** is the Civil Service bureaucracy. Amusingly, within New York City, **Whitehall Street** refers to the immense bureaucratic leviathan of the New York City Department of Education, because their main headquarters are there. The mayor’s office has a whole staff just for “dealing with Whitehall Street.” ---
**Author:** ![Speak\_to\_me\_Maddie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Speak\_to\_me\_Maddie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Speak_to_me_Maddie)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/place-names-that-refer-to-a-particular-industry/547616/25 "2010-07-22T21:09:07Z")
Occasionally you will see the American space industry referred to simply as **Houston** , at least in context of longer discussions. Also see **Main Street** to refer to small(er) town America, even though most big citites have streets called Main. Here in Texas one often hears the city name **Austin** as shorthand for progressive culture. ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/place-names-that-refer-to-a-particular-industry/547616/26 "2010-07-22T21:11:47Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > How did I not know that Cheddar was a place name!? That’s pretty funny actually. Colby cheese - Named after Colby Wisconsin. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/place-names-that-refer-to-a-particular-industry/547616/27 "2010-07-22T21:21:27Z")
**K Street** in Washington DC, the industry of government lobbying. > [@Markxxx](#): > > I’ve never heard the word Nashville to refer to country music, when used alone. Oh, it’s definitely used that way, to mean the country music recording and promotion industry. More specifically, it means _mainstream_ country music recording and promotion. Many country artists were ostracized from “Nashville” during their creative peaks, because they didn’t fit in with (or go along with) the standards and methods of the industry of the time. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/place-names-that-refer-to-a-particular-industry/547616/28 "2010-07-22T21:33:28Z")
For example, > [@Stephen Thomas Erlewine](#): > > Many artists, including Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson, followed Waylon’s anti-Nashville stance and eventually the whole “outlaw” movement – so-named because of the artists’ ragged, maverick image and their independence from Nashville – became one of the most significant country forces of the '70s, helping the genre adhere to its hardcore honky-tonk roots. > [@Steve Earle](#): > > A lot of people try to set me up to badmouth Nashville, and I hate the way country radio sounds now. But I didn’t like a lot of it in the '80s when I was making records, and I really haven’t liked a lot of it in a long time. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/place-names-that-refer-to-a-particular-industry/547616/29 "2010-07-22T21:45:33Z")
In an odd reversal, Truth Or Consequences, New Mexico, was named after a TV game show with absolutely no connects to said town. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/place-names-that-refer-to-a-particular-industry/547616/30 "2010-07-22T22:05:33Z")
**The Pentagon** , for the U.S. Department of Defense, or, more broadly, the top brass of the U.S. Armed Forces. Also, **Foggy Bottom** is Washington, D.C. shorthand for the U.S. State Department. I’ve never been able to determine if it is a real toponym, or a nickname. Any D.C. dopers want to chime in? ---
**Author:** ![SmithCommaJohn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecd19e/32.png) [@SmithCommaJohn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmithCommaJohn)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/place-names-that-refer-to-a-particular-industry/547616/31 "2010-07-22T22:08:38Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > In an odd reversal, Truth Or Consequences, New Mexico, was named after a TV game show with absolutely no connects to said town. That _is_ pretty odd ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/place-names-that-refer-to-a-particular-industry/547616/32 "2010-07-22T22:09:15Z")
> [@RaftPeople](#): > > Seattle - Jet City Yeah, but you never hear something like, “Seattle is in an uproar over the cancellation of Project X”, where project X is an Aerospace project, like you might “Hollywood is in an uproar over the cancellation of Project X”, where project X is an entertainment project. Seattle isn’t even home to Boeing headquarters anymore, although we still have a huge Boeing presence. ---
**Author:** ![Rayne\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/df705f/32.png) [@Rayne\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rayne_Man)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/place-names-that-refer-to-a-particular-industry/547616/33 "2010-07-22T22:11:33Z")
[Grub Street](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grub_Street):- _The street name no longer exists, but Grub Street has since become a pejorative term for impoverished hack writers and writings of low literary value._ ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/place-names-that-refer-to-a-particular-industry/547616/34 "2010-07-22T22:15:08Z")
Foggy Bottom is a real place. Besides State, it’s the neighborhood of the Kennedy Center and the Watergate. And a bunch of highways and access roads and such–actually, it’s not much of a “neighborhood.” ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/place-names-that-refer-to-a-particular-industry/547616/35 "2010-07-22T22:21:42Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > Another obvious example not mentioned is “Broadway” to mean “theatre”. The British equivalent is not a single street but the wider area of “the West End”. The British equivalent is Shaftesbury Avenue. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/place-names-that-refer-to-a-particular-industry/547616/36 "2010-07-22T22:49:04Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Yeah, but you never hear something like, “Seattle is in an uproar over the cancellation of Project X”, where project X is an Aerospace project, like you might “Hollywood is in an uproar over the cancellation of Project X”, where project X is an entertainment project. > > Seattle isn’t even home to Boeing headquarters anymore, although we still have a huge Boeing presence. So Seattle is not called Jet City, and every major order or cancellation is not reported in the local news? ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/place-names-that-refer-to-a-particular-industry/547616/37 "2010-07-22T23:07:18Z")
Yes, anything Boeing-related is reported in the daily news, because Boeing is still a major employer here, and yes, Seattle sometimes (although much less than in the past) calls itself “Jet City”. But that doesn’t mean Seattle is a synecdoche for the aerospace industry in the same way that Detroit is a synecdoche for the automotive industry, or Hollywood for the entertainment industry, or Madison Avenue for the advertising industry. So when there’s big news in the Aerospace industry, the reports in Seattle talk about Seattle, but the reporters in the rest of the country don’t talk about the reaction in Seattle, and expect people to understand that by Seattle they really mean “the Aeospace industry”. If someone says “something big is happening in Hollywood”, you know they mean in entertainment. If someone says “something big is happening in Seattle” you’re more likely to think of coffee or grunge music than airplanes. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/place-names-that-refer-to-a-particular-industry/547616/38 "2010-07-22T23:07:59Z")
> [@mascaroni](#): > > Denmark Street in Soho, London was known for music publishing. I think that the New York equivalent is Tin Pan Alley (or possibly the Brill Building). ---
**Author:** ![MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MPB_in_Salt_Lake)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/place-names-that-refer-to-a-particular-industry/547616/39 "2010-07-22T23:17:39Z")
Milwaukee was THE brewing capitol of the USA for generations, and even today the baseball team’s name still references that past glory… ---
**Author:** ![JCorre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3da27b/32.png) [@JCorre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JCorre)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/place-names-that-refer-to-a-particular-industry/547616/40 "2010-07-22T23:21:04Z")
Here you go: > **[Metonymy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metonym)** > > Metonymy (/mɪˈtɒnɪmi, -nəmi, mɛ-/) is a figure of speech in which a concept is referred to by the name of something closely associated with that thing or concept. > The words metonymy and metonym come from Ancient Greek μετωνυμία (metōnumía) 'a change of name'; from μετά (metá) 'after, post, beyond', and -ωνυμία (-ōnumía), a suffix that names figures of speech, from ὄνυμα (ónuma) or ὄνομα (ónoma) 'name'. > Metonymy and related figures of speech are common in everyday speech and writing. Synecdo... [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/place-names-that-refer-to-a-particular-industry/547616.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/place-names-that-refer-to-a-particular-industry/547616.md?page=3)