A Compendium of Rather Rude Place Names

The number of communities in the world with awesome names is endless. Putting minds properly gutter-wise, I decided to concentrate on the giggle-worthy ones. Here's a decently long list, illustrated with signs from the communities. I guess I should warn that it's perhaps NSFW, though there's not much I can do about that. These are the proper names, after all.

The infamous community of Dildo, Newfoundland. Nearby, there's also a 'Dildo Island' and a 'Dildo Arm'.

Intercourse, which is in Pennsylvania. Population 1,558. Witness was filmed there.

Knob Lick, Missouri. Where Witness wasn't filmed.

This delightful name shows up on a lot of these lists, including the book Rude Britain - which suggests it's in the UK. Can't tell you much more than that, though.

This lovely place, which so many men have been looking for, is in Savoie. Which is in France. Apparently the name comes from the Gallo-Roman name "Pusiacum", which is in no way any less funny.

Anus is also in France. Not that near the one before it, as it turns out, but in Burgundy. And 'Anus in Burgundy' should most definitely be the name of a work of art.

Here's Muff, in County Donegal, Ireland. It's a suburb of Derry, a/k/a Londonderry, which is kinda in a different country.

There's no real point in spending too long in the UK, as Rude Britain has done the job well. How can you say no to Penistone, though? It's pronounced to rhyme with Jennifer Aniston, though - or, if you prefer, with Cece Peniston. And with 10,000 dwellers, it's probably the biggest community here.

This fine locale is in Bavaria. There is a building there called "Wank-Haus", whose picture I desperately wanted to include. But why break the trend?

This popular destination is in Orkney, where people like to pose with the sign pointing to them. People are self-effacing and oh-so-clever.

This charming community in the Philippines seems to have changed its name to the less enjoyable 'Sasmuan', which probably really bugged that guy in the orange jacket.

There are three different states in the USA that have a Climax: Michigan, Minnesota and Pennsylvania (where Intercourse also is, of course). Now 'climax' is not only a naughty word. Novels, for example, have climaxes. But that's not what you think of when you see this name, is it?

For reference purposes, for those who haven't been able to figure it out for themselves: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=Intercourse,+PA,+United+States&daddr=Climax,+PA,+United+States&hl=en&geocode=FeDsYgIdB7t2-ym7G_rMtDjGiTFs3nTVfH4VqQ%3BFUU7aAIdGqlI-ynXsNXQQDnLiTEc41kMQyeN5Q&mra=ls&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=33.02306,79.013672&ie=UTF8&z=8 is a map from Intercourse to Climax. It apparently takes 3 hours 48 minutes, and Google Maps advises whet everyone else already knows: This route has tolls.

A few street names? This chaste place is in Amber Valley, UK.

I've already devoted an entire entry to this one, but it's too good to ignore.

How can I possibly give up fair England, home to places like this? 'Fanny' means different things on either side of 'the pond', but it's even naughtier in the UK.

Charming one here. Don't know where it is, though I can at least say it looks North American.

This awkward one is a train station in Toronto. Viagra strikes again.

This horrifying one is in Lake Havasu City, Arizona. No idea what was going on in that community when they were naming streets.

This one is on the Busch Campus of Rutgers University, in New Jersey. It's just off Hoes Lane, which proves the whole area was named by drunk fratboys.

This one is in Hong Kong, where the obvious fact that this is a transliteration from Chinese makes it no less awesome.

Who am I kidding? How can I ignore the English, when they keep producing things like this one, in Besthorpe, Norfolk?

And lastly, where would I be if I missed out on this town in Austria, king of rude names, illustrated here with pictures of children. Because things are different in Austria.

I did remind you it was NSFW.

"Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"

Image via Wikipedia
I have to admit I've never seen Blade Runner. Something about its fans turns me off, frankly. I don't know what it is. Generally Science Fiction just isn't my thing, and Science Fiction in the 1980s has all of the cheese with none of the kitsch of the 60s variety. So I don't know the plot of this book, since I presume that the only people who know the plot of this book know it from the movie.

The book was written by Philip K. Dick, who may one day get a listing here, alongside Jacque Tits. Before that, though, we have the book, whose name is not as run-of-the-mill as 'Blade Runner' (gofor in an abbatoir?) but has the much more interesting name "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"

I don't know the answer to the question posed. I don't know what the logic is behind it (I connected it with 'counting sheep' but I now realise that that's a gambit for falling asleep and nothing to do with dreams at all). I don't really want to know, because I like the title as a slightly poetic piece of nonsense, like Noam Chomsky's famous 'grammatically-correct-but-meaningles sentence' "Colourless green ideas sleep furiously". That'd be a good name for a book too.

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"Salman Butt"

So I'm sitting at home with my wife last week. There's something or other on TV, and she gets bored by it and decides to turn on BBC World News. I ask her why, and she says she wants to see what's on the news. I say, 'yeah, but why the BBC? Why not something local?' She tells me she wants to see world news. I tell her that the local channels show world news too, they just don't show cricket news. And to prove my point, suddenly they're talking about cricket. But... there's method in my wife's madness, for it turns out it's actually some kind of cricket scandal. I was trying to be interested (and failing), until suddenly my ears perked up at one salient fact: one of the players in the scandal was named Salman Butt.


Let's stop and consider that for a moment. (1) Just how similar is it to the Bart Simpson phone prank "Seymour Butts"? (2) Just how cool is it that in Urdu his name is "سلمان بٹ", which just looks awesome (as anything in the Arabic alphabet by default does)? (3) Just how well does hus name go with Philip K. Dick, Ed Balls and Jacques Tits, each of whom have appeared in these pages? The four of them should open a law firm together.

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"Disko Island"

Image via WikipediaWon't you take me to Funkytown? No? Well, that's okay. Too mainstream for me. I'd rather go somewhere a bit more remote, though equally funky.

What about Greenland? More to the point, what about a tiny island in western Greenland? And by 'tiny', I actually mean 'ridiculously huge, though looking tiny on a map of Greenland'. Greenland's not a small place.

While most Greenlandic places have both Danish and Kalaallisut names, and while the latter are frequently as cool as the language name itself (wasn't that Superman's Kryptonian name?), in this case Qeqertarsuaq pales next to the island's Dutch name (or rather it's English name): Disko Island.

How can there be no albums out there with that name? No dance clubs? It's just way too awesome. "I live on Disko Island... baby". Never mind that there's only 1100 people there, all of them Inuit, and that it's as glamorous as the picture that illustrates this article. It doesn't matter: funky is a state of mind, and those thousand-plus Inuit are funky in ways you've never dreamed of.
After all, they live on Disko Island...

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"Brown Booby"

Image via WikipediaOnce you're down in the gutter, it's tough to get yourself back out... so after last week's math whiz, we've got a bird this time. I think that most people are aware that there are a handful (huh huh... handful) of birds out there with rather silly names. And when it comes to this particular genus, really all 'boobies' are equally silly. Knowing there's a group of birds called the 'booby' ought to have been enough. I mean, in addition to breasts, there's just so much silly about the word 'booby' (not to imply that breasts are silly, mind you) - and that includes booby-traps and booby-prizes. The other boobies in this genus are also impressive. i suppose I could have devoted a page to Abbott's Booby or the Masked Booby. Or I could have just pointed you to the totally awesome "Category: Boobies" page at Wikipedia. But perhaps it's the alliteration. Perhaps it's the Vincent Gallo movie. I just know that "Brown Booby" makes me giggle more than any of those other names. And that's impressive.

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"Jacques Tits"

Image via Wikipedia
So first off let me apologise for my tragically long absence. I'd intended to keep this going every week, but... well, you know how it is. Anyway, at the risk of falling too deep into sophomoric humour... ah, forget about it. I can't do this week's edition without falling into sophomoric humour. You see, it's about Mr. Tits. or rather Monsieur Tits, a Belgian / French mathematician with a truly awesome name.

I understand precisely zero about any kind of mathematics more complex than division. So although certainly Jacques Tits's contributions to modern life extend further than a giggle-worthy name, the advancements for which he's credited must certainly elicit plenty of snorts on campuses around the world. Unless math students are a truly humourless bunch. To start with, M. Tits is credited with inventing the concept of Tits buildings, which are presumaby erected (ho ho he he) in parts of cities where I would dearly love to live. I'd love to make a hugle list of puns about Tits buildings, but it's rfeally shooting fish in a barrel, isn't it? Truly unfair to those struggling to find a pun-worthy subject.

He's also known for the Tits alternative, something FTM transsexuals have long debated. And additionally, it would appear that the Tits group is named for him. Not in fact a company in which I'd love to have shares (headquartered no doubt in a Tits building), a Tits group is, apparently,

a² = b³ = (ab)¹³ = [a,b]⁵ = [a,bab]⁴ = (ababababab ^{− 1})⁶ = 1.

As you were no doubt aware.

Note: I'd like to include some links here, but Zemanta's mind is way dirtier than mine, and all of the links, while clearly sharing in their titles our esteemed professor's surname, seem to have interests in mind more prurient than math. The autosuggested labels for this entry include 'Katy Perry', 'Rihanna', 'Rosa Acosta' and (interestingly) 'Ellen'. This entry is probably going to get my blog autolisted on NSFW sites everywhere. Sigh. Monsieur Tits, this is all your fault.

"Fresh Kills"

Image via Wikipedia

Ah, good old New York City... so tell-it-like-it is... I'm so enchanted with the notion that calling the world's biggest garbage dump 'Fresh Kills' is a vivid reminder of just how gruesome a garbage dump is that I'm tempted not to care about the rather more innocent reality behind this striking name. You really do have to admit that 'Fresh Kills' is an awesome name for just about anything, really, but a double-plus-awesome name for a huge garbage dump. Like I say, the story might as well just end here.

As it is, however, the story carries on. Fresh Kills, decommissioned as a garbage dump and now apparently about to be turned into a park (thus showing the new New York, which artificially plasters over its authentic ugliness with astroturf) is named for the stream 'Fresh Kills'. And that comes from Dutch, where kille means 'waterbed'. So it's just a boring multilingual geographical description. Well pooh.

Oh, and Fresh Kills flows into Arthur Kill. Which, in other circumstances, would be a super-awesome name too. Here, though, its coolness dwarfs by comparion.

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