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Renaming (was: Aspects of ENglish Grammar)

From:John Cowan <cowan@...>
Date:Tuesday, March 16, 2004, 15:16
Philippe Caquant scripsit:

> The people living in such Departements were feeling > unhappy and despised (in fact, the problem was that > the agricultural products exported from those > Departements had a chance to be ill-considered by > foreigners not understanding French geographic names).
A good enough idea. It's clear that anglophones think of Lake Superior as being "better" than the other American/ Canadian Great Lakes: it is the deepest, the largest, has the purest water, etc., though etymologically it is simply le lac superieur, the upper lake, the source of the others.
> - then some people from Creuse and from Cher also came > complaining: "Creuse" can be understood as "Hollow" (- > rather depressing - in fact, it's from a river), and > "Cher" as "Expensive"... (a river too). But the > Administration said, hey, wait a minute, we won't > change names every five minutes if there isn't a good > reason for it, so for the moment Cher is still Cher, > and Creuse, Creuse.
Generally such changes are straightforward in the U.S. when the locals actually want them -- some places consider their bizarre names to actually be tourist attractions -- as part of the general anglophone belief that being able to change one's name, or to give one's child any name, is an essential liberty, to the point that no formalities are actually required to do so, as long as there is no fraud involved (although dealing with the bureaucracy is much easier if one gets a court to take "judicial notice" of the change, for which a fee is charged). -- Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis vom dies! John Cowan <jcowan@...> Schliesst euer Aug vor heiliger Schau, http://www.reutershealth.com Denn er genoss vom Honig-Tau, http://www.ccil.org/~cowan Und trank die Milch vom Paradies. -- Coleridge (tr. Politzer)