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KidenStormsoarer t1_j6gd8bd wrote

In addition to the above translation issues and playing telephone, I'd like to take this opportunity to quote terry pratchett, who has a quote for every situation.

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The forest of Skund was indeed enchanted, which was nothing unusual on the Disc, and was also the only forest in the whole universe to be called – in the local language – Your Finger You Fool, which was the literal meaning of the word Skund. The reason for this is regrettably all too common. When the first explorers from the warm lands around the Circle Sea travelled into the chilly hinterland, they filled in the blank spaces on their maps by grabbing the nearest native, pointing at some distant landmark, speaking very clearly in a loud voice, and writing down whatever the bemused man told them. Thus were immortalised in generations of atlases such geographical oddities as Just A Mountain, I Don’t Know, What? and, of course, Your Finger You Fool.

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ayerik t1_j6gnwlr wrote

My grandmother loved to tell the story of how the Ompompanoosuc River, in Vermont, got its name.

A European explorer came to the area and found a young girl, asking the name of the river. The young Native girl, desperate to get medical help for her father, I believe the local chief, but she didn't really understand English. She knew the explorer was English, though, so she cried out "ompampanoosuc" -- "My papa is sick!" The traveler didn't catch on, though, so it's been immortalized as Ompompanoosuc.

Canada was named because when the locals were asked the name of the place the explorers landed, they replied with the local name -- "The Village". This became the name for all of the land in the northern third or so of the continent, instead of the more accurate few square kilometers (or miles), and possibly even less than that, ignoring the vast multitude of different cultures, people, and languages in the new (to Europeans) place.

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Gingrpenguin t1_j6i56ss wrote

It's also why England has plenty of rivers named Avon which was the celtic word for river. When the romans came and asked the locals what the river was they simply replied its a river

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