Over on the Extrasolar Planet thread, people were dumping on the name of the observing implement that was used to discover the planet: the Very Large Telescope. Flodnak commented on pedestrian names that sound cool for being in foreign languages:
And it occurred to me that it might make a MPSIMS thread topic to point out things that sound cool in foreign languages and, well, dumb in English.
Let’s start out by spending Spring Break in the resort city of RatMouth. Then we can head west on I-10 to observe the Louisiana State Legislature meeting in Redstick.. Flying north, we can visit the ruins of Vinland at Handle with Meadows World Historic Site. Moving up the St. Lawrence, we come to Wolf River, or perhaps nearby Grandma.
Anybody got other such stuff to add?
The US is chock full of place names that get a lot more mundane when translated into English. Polycarp has already mentioned Mouse Mouth and Red Stick.
There’s Big River, with all its natural wonders. We’ve also got Big River River and Cloudy Water. We’ve also got Grassy Place, Upper Land, and Small Spring Place.
If you’re sick of being in the US, you could always go to Well Watered. If that doesn’t suit you, how about Richport? If you go further south, you can get to Silverland.
Panama’s second largest city, Colón, sounds like it might be part of the gastrointestinal tract in English, but it just means “Columbus.”
There’s dispute about what Panamá means: two contenders are “Lots-of-Fish” or “Lots-of-Butterflies.”
North of Panama are the countries of Rich Coast (Costa Rica) and Lowlands (Honduras),
Can’t think of many off the top of my head, most of the mundane place names I know of are already in English. I did once spend the night in Mouse though while waiting for the ferry. And my father sometimes works in Port Sheep (there’s a story behind that name, I just can’t remember what it is).