Columbus Day: When Words Collide

Different people often use different words to describe today's holiday. Some celebrate the opening of the New World to European exploration, while others celebrate (or lament) the first interaction between the Spaniards and (Native) Americans, and the civilization that developed as a result.

The name of this day of discovery also changes from one culture to another. Today is Columbus Day in the United States, but did you know that our American neighbors to the south celebrate the same holiday under different names? In Costa Rica, for example, The Day of the Cultures (El Día de las Culturas) paints a rosy picture of multiculturalism. In Mexico, The Day of the Races (El Día de la Raza) alludes to the mixing of Spanish and Indigenous cultures (and phenotypes) that is the foundation of Mexican civilization. In Venezuela, The Day of Indigenous Resistance (El Día de la Resistencia Indígena) glorifies the Pre-Columbian indigenous culture of the New World. (Learn more about Columbus Day.)

---------

Today's Word of the Day, Neutral Ground, also deals with the collision between different societies, and may also mean a number of different things to different people.

I first learned this word as a New Orleans term for the median of city streets. As a former student of history, I loved the word's colonial origin as a meeting place for the French and the Spanish to trade.

Recently City Dictionary Citizens have taught us different meanings. For example, Neutral Ground is also one of the names for a territory in Western Louisiana that was disputed between Texas (then a part of Spain) and the United States, the latter of which recently gained adjacent territory in the Louisiana Purchase. To avoid confrontation, the two parties agreed to keep the strip of land neutral. The Neutral Ground was officially called the Sabine Free State, and has also been known by other names, including Neutral Strip, Neutral Territory, and No Man's Land (according to a Wikipedia article).

---------

While we're talking about words colliding, some might mistakenly label Columbus as the man who proved the Earth was round. This simply isn't true. Eratosthenes, studying at the great library of Alexandria, discovered the roundness of the Earth in 240 BC and measured our planet's circumference with astonishing accuracy.

Here's an article that explains his discovery: http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/06/dayintech_0619

Here's Carl Sagan's story of Eratosthenes' work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JHEqBLG650

Maybe the average 15-century Spaniard thought the Earth was flat (and maybe even Fernando and Isabel themselves), but the winning argument had already been made available for nearly two millennia before Columbus set off for the Orient. Plus, he would have only proved the Earth was round (something that had already been done before) had he actually found the Orient by sailing west. Of course, we all know he came across something entirely different.

Believe you me...

Say you what? You may or may not have heard of "believe you me", which is today's Milwaukee Word of the Day. I have heard this plenty of times, but maybe that's because I'm from Wisconsin.

Rather than thinking of this bizarre syntax as improper, informal, or simply a regional anomaly, consider its historical origin:

Michael Quinion from World Wide Words, who writes on international English from his own British perspective, traces this verb-subject-object word order back to the 1611 version of the King James Bible. He finds many passages in which a person said something to the tune of "hear ye me" when someone wanted to emphasis a point.

Quinion also notes that the specific phrase of "believe you me" is a rather modern one in America, showing up in writing for the first time in 1919.

What remains unclear is how widespread this usage is currently in the United States. Again, people still use it in Wisconsin to preface an important statement, but where else does this phrase show up? I'm interested to hear your comments...inform you us :)

When brands become generic

Our City Dictionary poll widget contains a few regional vocabulary questions that deal with brand names that are often used as a generic term.

Take "Coke", for example. In parts of the Southern United States, a coke can be

any kind of sweetened carbonated beverage. A soda or pop (or whatever you say), no matter what the actual brand, is considered a coke.

This is a classic example of a brand name becoming generic. Coca-Cola has even sent representatives to restaurants to make sure that when a customer orders a Coke, he isn't given a Pepsi or some other perceived equivalent. This is a negative consequence from Coca-Cola's perspective, but of course such a consequence only arises as a result of dominant position in the product category. Even if the brand could be considered diluted as a generic name for the product itself, the brand recognition is still strengthened and its staying power is solidified for many years to come.

Another example clear example is Kleenex brand tissues. In our Tissue vs. Kleenex poll, 66% of respondents say Kleenex instead of tissue.

Other brand-name-as-generic examples include the following:

Band-Aid as bandage (at least a small, disposable one)

Scotch tape as invisible tape

Walkman as portable music player (although MP3 players have certainly changed this)

There are many more examples that you wouldn't even suspect were ever brand names, such as "dry ice".

Google has even managed to make its brand a verb. As far as I know, this hasn't happened since Xerox became the verb "to photocopy", as well as the noun for "photocopy".

Can you think of any good examples of genericized brands?

That's what she said!

Today's Word of the Day, Ride the SLUT, reminds me of the Family Guy episodes when they cut to Quagmire, who would yuck it up at the slightest innuendo. Perhaps riding the SLUT isn't so subtle, but the thought nonetheless crossed my mind. I also happened to recall a few other funny entries that make childish crotch-humorist references. Consider the following:

Show and Blow (Madison, WI): If you're at a Badger football game and have an alcohol-related ejection, you are forced to perform a breathalyzer test upon showing your ticket voucher at the gate.

Go in High, Come out Gay (West Chester, PA): Apparently you can go into town on High Street, and out of town on Gay Street.

Cock'n'Balls (Portland, OR): According to the sole definition, the local bakery doesn't leave anything to the imagination with this peculiar pastry.

Dickhater (Decatur, GA): I don't know if there's a compelling story behind this nickname, or if it's simply a cheap, opportunistic play on phonetics.

Shlongfellow (La Crosse, WI): Blaspheming a great American poet, the kids of rival Lincoln Middle School often make a phallic reference to Longfellow Middle School. On a positive note, "Paul Revere's Ride" was a good one. (That's what she said!)

Can you think of any childish references prevalent in your city? Share them with us :)

Playing nice (and not-so-nice) with city nicknames

When coming across today's Word of the Day, Fort Misery--a nickname for Fort Myers, FL--I started taking mental inventory of all the interesting city nicknames that the City Dictionary community has come up with. Some of them are flattering, some are not, and some are simply weird and funny.

Here's a rundown of the ones that stick out in my mind, labeled as the good, the bad, and the funny:

Good

The American Riviera: Santa Barbara, CA

Ft. Fun: Fort Collins, CO

The city so nice they named it twice: New York, NY

Bad

Lil Pakistan: Fort Myers, FL

Mount Horeble: Mount Horeb, WI

India No Place: Indianapolis, IN

Little Beirut: Portland, OR

Smog Angeles: Los Angeles, CA

Funny

Wiscompton: Nickname for Wisconsin, popularized on t-shirts sold in Madison

People's Republic of Boulder...and Madison, Cambridge, Soviet Monica et al

Drinking City with a Football Problem: Buffalo, NY

Ill Mill: Milwaukee, WI

La La Land: Los Angeles, CA

Smallbany: Albany, NY

OshVegas, SheVegas, SpringVegas

OK, maybe some of the bad ones are also funny, but I can see why people from those places might find the nicknames harsh.

-Tom :)

What should be your city's tagline?

At City Dictionary we're all about defining cities. What better way to do so than with a catchy tagline?

For your creative pleasure, we created a wiki tagline for every city on our website. Anyone can login (with a user account or anonymously) and edit the tagline to see the "official" tagline for the city change instantly. The taglines are limited to 140 characters. Let's face it: the wittiest taglines are often quite brief.

Here are a few examples from the many dictionaries on the website:

New York, NY: "America's True Melting Pot"

Miami, FL: "The long-lost sixth borough of NYC"

Los Angeles, CA: "Welcome to Smog Angeles"

New Orlenans, LA: "The Big Easy"

Some of my personal favorites are ones that are adapted from famous movie taglines, such as the following:

Detroit, MI: "In Detroit no one can hear you scream" (adapted from Alien's, "In space no one can hear you scream")

What's neat is that you can click on "history" to see the entire history of the wiki tagline. For example, here is the tagline history for Madison, Wisconsin. Once you create a tagline, it becomes immortalized. If yours is good enough, it might just stick around on the front page for a while.

So, go to City Dictionary, find your city, and share with us your best tagline. They don't have to be official-sounding, or even entirely based on reality. Taglines, just like resumes, should be aspirational (wink).

Go in high, come out gay?

We're feeling kind of childish here at City Dictionary today, so we made Go in High, Come out Gay the Word of the Day.

According to melottwannabe9, you can enter West Chester on High Street, and then exit via Gay Street.

While we're on the topic of childish city references, here are other dictionary entries that I have found either irreverent or unintentionally suggestive:

The Gayborhood

Show and Blow

Three Way

Bone Zone

Homely Dames