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EarhornJones t1_iu69p37 wrote

Reply to comment by Pippin1505 in TIL that when the French first arrived in North America they met the Ojibwe Indians who introduced them to other tribes but used nasty names. The Lakota/Dakota people were called "Nadowessiwag," which became Nadouessioux in French, then Sioux in English. It means "little snake." by marmorset

"The monks" is a false etymology. The French trappers didn't name it after monks. They named it after a native word, that was later shortened/corrupted to "Des Moines".

From Wikipedia: William Bright writes that Moines was an abbreviation used by the French for Moingouena or Moingona, an Algonquian subgroup of the Illinois people. The Native American term was /mooyiinkweena/, a derogatory name applied to the Moingouena by the Peoria people, a closely related subgroup. The meaning of the native word, according to an early French writer, is visage plein d'ordure, or in plain English, "shit-face", from mooy-, "shit", -iinkwee, "face", and -na, "indefinite actor".[7]

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Hypersky75 t1_iu6axd9 wrote

As a french speaker I had no idea, always thought of the literal sense in French, "of the monks" or just "some monks".

Shit faces. I like it. Faces de merde. 😅

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Phu_Bai_PX t1_iu73yt3 wrote

Looks like the folks of Moingona, Iowa may want to consider renaming their town.

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proggR t1_iu6rd3w wrote

So what you're saying is, whenever someone is looking to party hard, they should say they want to get mooyiinkweena'd? lol

Drunk history should make a spin off covering language. I'd watch that lol

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VeryJoyfulHeart59 t1_iu8wzmv wrote

Having lived in the Des Moines area for 7 years, I can attest that very few, if any of the locals are aware of this. However, if they did, they would be quite proud, as Iowans seem to be proud and arrogant regarding any negative attribute of Iowa and Iowans.

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