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Worldwide/(All) : Worldwide - Odd Town Names
10:42:21am Starting the new year with a new thread to share your covers and postcards with unusual town names in the cancellation. If you can answer "yes" to the question: "Did they really name their town that?" then post it to this thread. I will start off with FISHKILL ON THE HUDSON, New York, USA shown below. Dutch settlers named it after two Dutch words, vis(fish) and kil(stream or creek). It makes for an odd name for a town, shortened to Fishkill today.
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11:05:56am re: Worldwide - Odd Town Names
Here are two from North Carolina. Clearly, this club had a couple of collectors who had similar ideas of collecting unusual town names:
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amsd
Editor, Seal News; contributor, JuicyHeads
12:24:13pm re: Worldwide - Odd Town Names
Fishkill is not far from me.
I don't know when Fishkill lost its "on the Hudson" modifier, but it doesn't seem to be attached anymore.
"Stream" is not quite accurate, at least not in current English usage for "kill." Instead, "kill" refers to inlets, that is, streams that emanate FROM a river rather than emptying INTO a river. Hudson, being a tidal river, has many of these.
Jan-Simon might be able to speak to its Dutch linguistic origins, which may not match the current English usage.
David-on-the-Hudson
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Jansimon
01:26:23pm
Approvals re: Worldwide - Odd Town Names
I looked it up in a Dutch etymological dictionary. In Dutch the word "kil" is not used anymore in its old meaning creek or last part of a river before it reaches the sea. In the 15th to 19th century it was more common and that is of course consistent with usage in the Dutch colony of Nieuw Nederland (later to be renamed New York).
Over here there are several geographical names that contain "kil".
www.pagowirense.nl/stamps/
Pogopossum
New York City still has Arthur Kill and Kill van Kull; both of reach out to the Upper or Lower Bay, more in line with the usage Jansimon describes. Peekskill is on the Hudson, but not at the wider Tappan Zee, and the current Fishkill is a bit inland from the river. There are a lot of fascinating place names on the Hudson: Coxsackie, Poughkeepsie, and Catskill. I am sure there is research out there somewhere.
pigdoc
I am perpetually amused that the part of Staten Island where the VAST landfill is, is known as...Fresh Kills.
And, speaking of Coxsackie, I pass through there on my way up to Albany on business. Seeing the town name on the exit sign always reminds me of the etiology of Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease (HFMD) Virus of humans. From wikipedia: "The coxsackieviruses were discovered in 1948–49 by Dr. Gilbert Dalldorf, a scientist working at the New York State Department of Health in Albany, New York."
Isn't postal history illuminating?
BenFranklin1902
Tom in Exton, PA
Oh, since you asked! How'd you like to be from Butzville?
OK, I had to post this one:
My best school buddy had a cabin just a mile south of Meeteetse, Wyoming. Later, it struck me, and continues to be striking, that I cannot find another word (proper noun or otherwise) that has FIVE of the same vowel in it. Anybody?
And, for a truly entertaining read, check this history of the main landmark in Meeteetse:
Cowboy Bar Meeteetse
I have drank in, played pool in, and shook hands with the (former?) proprietor of this fine establishment, Big Jim. Where Butch Cassidy was once apprehended...
Guthrum
Woolloomooloo, Sydney, NSW has 8 'o's. Llanfair P.G., Anglesey, UK, in its full form, has eleven 'l's, although only one single 'l', the others being 5 pairs of 'll'.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary is notoriously generous when it comes to words which we may not use that much. One such is POSSESSIONLESSNESSES, which has 9 's's.
See Ross Eckler, Making the Alphabet Dance, St Martins Griffin, NY, 1997
"Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch"
DaveSheridan
I can insert some (very) childish humour here
"www.globalphilately.com, www.acsvid.com, APS & IPDA"
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Did they really name their town that? Those are some good ones, everybody. I was sorting stamps this morning and found this stamp...odd name for the times we live in today. BOOM!
The 15 best things to do in Boom Belgium
https://www.tripadvisor.ca/Attractions-g3250534-Activities-Boom_Antwerp_Province.html
Interesting, Roy, I had never heard of Boom before.
JohnnyRockets
This is another GREAT post!
Those are some crazy names.
Thanks all for sharing!
snowy12
Auctions re: Worldwide - Odd Town Names
I have this South Australian cancel "Stockade" Which is now "Yatala Prison"
keesindy
I posted this in another thread a few years ago. It is from a small Indiana town that gets an unusual amount of first class mail in the weeks leading up to Christmas!
"I no longer collect, but will never abandon the hobby"
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