this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2024
588 points (97.3% liked)

Memes

8405 readers
527 users here now

Post memes here.

A meme is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme.

An Internet meme or meme, is a cultural item that is spread via the Internet, often through social media platforms. The name is by the concept of memes proposed by Richard Dawkins in 1972. Internet memes can take various forms, such as images, videos, GIFs, and various other viral sensations.


Laittakaa meemejä tänne.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] frezik@midwest.social 92 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Not around here. We named towns after terms from native tribes who were kicked out of the area.

[–] steal_your_face@lemmy.ml 23 points 2 months ago

Also after wildlife we killed and nature we destroyed to build it.

[–] ThePantser@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months ago (2 children)
[–] frezik@midwest.social 12 points 2 months ago

Wisconsin, but it applies to a lot of the Midwest and Plains and... Kinda everywhere in the US.

[–] doctordevice@lemmy.ca 10 points 2 months ago

Could be a lot of places. Washington is full of them, too.

[–] chicagohuman@lemm.ee 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

And Chicago was named with a native word that describes a local onion or something

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)
[–] frezik@midwest.social 12 points 2 months ago

It's fine. Ayn Rand said it's OK because they're not real people or something.

[–] criitz@reddthat.com 38 points 2 months ago

The people that named those places were still European

Checkmate

[–] JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works 35 points 2 months ago (6 children)

But if it's a French place, they'll pronounce it wrong.

[–] variants@possumpat.io 27 points 2 months ago (1 children)

There's no right way to pronounce french

[–] TheBrideWoreCrimson@sopuli.xyz 3 points 2 months ago

Wulle wu kuschee awek mwa?

[–] Blackout@fedia.io 9 points 2 months ago

How do you think we pronounce DeQuindre? Dee-kin-der. How about Livernois? Just add an e at the end and you'll figure it out. Too our credit we somehow pronounce Cadeiux correctly.

[–] DerisionConsulting@lemmy.ca 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Fortier pronounced "Forty-er" as in "my fort is more fort-like(fort-y) than your fort".

[–] Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Ohio: Versailles (locally pronounced vur-sales)

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 months ago

They pronounce it like its French but it turns out to be Spanish

[–] GraniteM@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

I grew up near Calais, Barre, and Charlotte, and none of them are pronounced how you'd think.

[–] RoidingOldMan@lemmy.world 32 points 2 months ago (1 children)

They just named it after the place they were from and put "new" in the front.

[–] JackLSauce@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months ago

New Niu York

[–] funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 20 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Those European names: the word "Hill" in 3 different languages mashed together

[–] leisesprecher 16 points 2 months ago

Most names are essentially just landmarks of some sort.

Hamburg is derived from Hammer Burg, simply meaning hammer castle.

Part of Hamburg is Altona, which is lower German for all too near, because it's really close to Hamburg.

East of Hamburg is Lübeck, which is means "settlement of the lub", whoever the lub were.

Even farther east is Warnemünde, which is located at the mouth (Mund) of the river Warnow.

Said river is getting pretty wide a bit upstream, which gave the city of Rostock its name ("where the river gets wider").

East of that: Stralsund. It's the sound (the water kind) of Strela.

And so on and so on.

[–] tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 months ago

Tom Scott had some more info on that

https://youtu.be/NUyXiiIGDTo

[–] teft@lemmy.world 19 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Wait until you learn a second language and start learning town names in a new country. Here we have such amazing town names like “The Eyebrow” and “Camp”.

(I just chose the silliest ones I know, there are normal town names too)

[–] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 18 points 2 months ago

Reminds me of this 😁

[–] rockerface@lemm.ee 11 points 2 months ago (3 children)

There's a city in Ukraine named, literally, "The Curved Horn" (Кривий Ріг)

[–] variants@possumpat.io 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] BruceTwarzen@lemm.ee 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, towns where i live are literally translated to boytown and lame crap like that

[–] Zwiebel 3 points 2 months ago

Try "settlement"

[–] leisesprecher 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Germany has Katzenhirn - cat brain.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 months ago

I like this more than toponyms ending with -pol, -tsk, -nsk, -rsk, and to a lesser extent -iv. It sounds unique and original, not following a template, and somehow fantasy-books-like as it suggests what people probably did there.

On the other hand, Ukraine has it's own New York too, just like in OP, and it inspired a lot of memes.

[–] tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

A lot of place names in English speaking countries are just names of natural or man-made features, but the etymology isn't obvious. Like Portsmouth or Waterford are pretty understandable, but -don, -den, -ton (valley, hill, farm) are all just things.

The Eyebrow's pretty cool though. Japan's also got some good ones, like Thousand Leaves, Oak (just oak), or (loosely translated) Noodle Hill. They like numbers too, like Eight Door or Lake Twelve. There's even a Silent Hill, but it's not too silent these days with almost 700,000 people there.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social 17 points 2 months ago

Ixonia, Wisconsin solved that problem by just drawing random letters from a hat until they came up with something pronounceable: Ixonia.

But I'm always amused by the street Oxford Place near my house. It's a street named after a university, named after a city, named after a shallow spot where cattle could cross the river.

[–] Dagnet@lemmy.world 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yep, just Americans look over to New Zeland nobody else for sure

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Nuke_the_whales@lemmy.world 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Americans didn't name these places. There were no Americans when these places were named

[–] TrousersMcPants@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months ago

Nah we definitely have had places like this named by Americans, too

[–] thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org 15 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

most of the city names in Washington State are native in origin. Just an FYI

[–] baltakatei@sopuli.xyz 7 points 2 months ago

You're telling me there is no Walla Walla, England?

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Annoyed_Crabby@monyet.cc 12 points 2 months ago

New Penistone

[–] Default_Defect@midwest.social 8 points 2 months ago (3 children)

In Iowa, we have a Madrid, but its pronounced like MADrid. And a town named Nevada, but pronounced NeVAYda.

[–] SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Cairo in Illinois, pronounced KAY-row.

[–] dan@upvote.au 4 points 2 months ago

There's a Brisbane in California, pronounced like "Briz-bain" (the Aussie pronunciation is more like "Briz-bn")

[–] OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee 2 points 2 months ago

Around Rochester NY theres a Chili but they pronounce it Chai-lie.

[–] wanderer@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago

The Phoenicians founded a new city in North Africa and called it 'New City' (Qart Hadasht), we now call it Carthage. The Carthaginians founded a new city in Spain and called it 'New City' (Qart Hadasht). The Romans conquered both of these cities, and found that having cities with the same confusing so called the second one 'New New City' (Carthago Nova).

[–] superkret 8 points 2 months ago

In Alaska there's a town called Chicken. They wanted to name it after the Ptarmigan that were abundant in the area, but couldn't agree on the correct spelling.

[–] bamfic@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Aggravates the shit out of me. I was reading about some famous person, and it said he's from Bayonne. And I thought, no shit, he's from Jersey?

No, not that Bayonne, and not that Jersey either.

Jesus fuck why couldn't people have made up new names, or just used more of the native names that already existed?

[–] Hadriscus@lemm.ee 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)
load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] sanpedropeddler@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 months ago

There's a small town in Missouri I visited named Versailles and its pronounced ver-sails.

[–] AFC1886VCC@reddthat.com 3 points 2 months ago

There's a Derry and Londonderry in New Hampshire right beside each other. Being from Northern Ireland, that is incredibly amusing to me.

load more comments
view more: next ›