Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2018 October 29

= October 29 =

Are any UK place names of U.S. or Commonwealth origin instead of the other way around?
Not necessarily aboriginal, Lake Itasca and Rego Park are not Native American (veritas caput and Real Good Construction Company) but anything in Britain named after these would still be names of American origin. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 13:52, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

I'm guessing you mean just villages, towns, etc.? There are of course very many UK streets named after places which were the sites of battles in the Second Boer War. Martinevans123 (talk) 13:56, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * No street names then. Are there neighborhoods or suburban subdivisions named after Boer War battle sites or is there nothing that big? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 14:19, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I would imagine that the OP can find the answer to their own question using a reference such as The Dictionary of British Place Names from Oxford. -- Jayron 32 14:03, 29 October 2018 (UTC)


 * There is Toronto, County Durham, which is named after Toronto, which is ultimately a native word. Adam Bishop (talk) 15:27, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm moderately sure that Mohawk is not native to County Durham. DuncanHill (talk) 16:58, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * And not far away is Quebec, County Durham! Also ultimately a native word. Adam Bishop (talk) 15:55, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm also fairly sure that Algonquin is not native to County Durham. DuncanHill (talk) 16:58, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, obviously I was referring to SMW's original question about aboriginal words. Toronto and Quebec are named after the places in Canada, and those names are from Mohawk and Algonquin, as you mention. Adam Bishop (talk) 17:03, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I think Adam Bishop was using the word "native" to mean Native American; which is common in North American English, in the same way that "aboriginal" is common shorthand for Aboriginal Australian.  Of course, the terms are not native to the UK.  They are Native American words. -- Jayron 32 17:45, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * We tend not to use "native" unadorned to refer to Indigenes nowadays in Britain, it smacks of colonial attitudes. ("The natives are revolting"). DuncanHill (talk) 18:59, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Yeah...it's not the best choice of words in Canada either. Sorry about that, I should have just used the actual names of the languages. Adam Bishop (talk) 10:43, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
 * There are seven Californias in England and Scotland. Rojomoke (talk) 15:41, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, one is named after a brickworks, but the others seem to be named after the California Gold Rush. Not sure about Pennsylvania, South Gloucestershire and Pennsylvania, Exeter. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:49, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Plus this California, just a couple of miles from Toronto. Ghmyrtle (talk) 19:19, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * According to our Pennsylvania, Exeter article: "It was named after the US state by Joseph Sparkes, a Quaker banker who built the first terrace there in about 1820" Alansplodge (talk) 18:32, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * The Pennsylvania housing estate at Sedbury, Gloucestershire, is named after the pre-existing Pennsylvania Farm...  which was probably also named by a Quaker who supported the ideals behind the US state's establishment.  Ghmyrtle (talk) 19:19, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * There are some interesting examples here: (the article also includes some places named after other world locations, and a few where the similarity of name is a coincidence.  Another one is Philadelphia, Tyne and Wear. Warofdreams talk 15:58, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Which mentions New York, Tyne and Wear, but not New York, North Yorkshire nor New York, Lincolnshire. Alansplodge (talk) 18:39, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Interesting enough there is a Mandela, Lazio. The closest in the UK are streets and parks though [//www.brandsouthafrica.com/people-culture/mandela/mandela-names-040713]. Nil Einne (talk) 17:35, 29 October 2018 (UTC)


 * There are several Spion Kops in England. Gandalf61 (talk) 17:37, 29 October 2018 (UTC)


 * There is an area of Stratford, London called Maryland Point notable for Maryland railway station; it was named after Maryland Point on the Potomac River by a returning migrant, probably Richard Lee I.
 * There is also Botany Bay, London and Botany Bay, Derbyshire; the origin of both names is obscure, but the one in London is either a joke based on its supposed remoteness or was from a farm building commemorating the discovery of the place in Australia.
 * Alansplodge (talk) 18:27, 29 October 2018 (UTC)


 * So a the Dakota-type joke? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 19:26, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * That sort of thing. It's right on the very northern border of Greater London and boasts a pub, a Rugby pitch a bus stop and an Evangelical chapel but not much else. Alansplodge (talk) 21:34, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * There's a Botany Bay farm in Dorset, where guards and prisoners would rest overnight on the route from Dorchester Assizes to the convict transports at Portsmouth. DuncanHill (talk) 18:57, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Why didn't the ship start from a closer port? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 19:26, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * The transports would have carried convicts from all over England, not just Dorset. Portsmouth was the home of the Royal Navy. DuncanHill (talk) 19:36, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, I suspect for historical reasons. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:38, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * ... and Botany Bay, Monmouthshire, near Tintern, which was an area settled by sea captains who may have sailed there.  Ghmyrtle (talk) 19:23, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * ...close by Barbadoes Hill. The C18 landowners in the area had links with the W Indies (slaves, sugar).  Ghmyrtle (talk) 20:02, 29 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Pimlico is thought to be the oldest place-name imported to England from the New World, by way of Ben Pimlico, who apparently took his (nick)name from Pamlico Sound. (Memory of an article in the journal of the American Names Society.) —Tamfang (talk) 01:04, 4 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Although that's rather conjectural according to Old and New London: Volume 5. Originally published by Cassell, Petter & Galpin, London, 1878. (Ch. IV) There was an earlier place in Hoxton called Pimlico and "...the district is not mentioned by the name of Pimlico in any existing document prior to the year 1626". Why Do Languages Change? (pp. 67-69) by Larry Trask reports two alternatives to the Pamlico Sound theory put forward by linguist Richard Coates; firstly Pimlico Island in the Bahamas whose etymology is unknown and secondly, Audubon's shearwater which was known in the 17th century as a "pemblico" acording to Captain John Smith. Anyhow, it does seem to have come from the other side of the Atlantic. Alansplodge (talk) 16:29, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

jack abramoff and lobbying
Hi, I was reading about Jack Abramoff here, and I've always been confused a bit. What does he mean by "the chairmen of the committees" and "members don't read the bills", from page 4 of that link? The chairmen of which committees? Members, meaning senators and representatives? Is there something simple I can read that will clear this up? Thanks, IBE (talk) 16:10, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Committees in the House and Senate. Search for the word "committee" and you will see several examples. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:18, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * See United States congressional committee for the committees he's talking about. The standard protocol for passing a law in the United States is (see here for more details):
 * a Bill is written and submitted to one of the congressional committees (based usually on the content of the bill) where the bill is discussed, debated, and polished. Then
 * the committee holds a vote to send the bill to the full house (either House of Representatives or Senate)
 * The full house discusses, debates, and ammends the bill
 * There's a final vote in the house. If it passes, it goes to the OTHER house where the process repeats.
 * If the two bills are different because of amendments made in the other house, there is a special committee called a "conference committee" which contains members of both houses that work on creating a harmonized bill that will pass both houses.
 * If both houses pass the identical bill, it goes to the President to sign into law.
 * Now, Abramoff has noted is how he has used this process to sneak Pork barrel projects into bills. The problem with most legislation is that 1) The Committee Chair holds enormous power because the Chair is the one that sets the agenda for the committee.  If he decides a bill is or is not coming to a vote, it does or it doesn't.  So Abramoff got his pet projects into bills by focusing on the committee chairs.  Since most members of congress do not read the bills they are voting on (they rely on staffers and/or lobbyists to do that and give them an executive summary of it), they rely on what the committees tell them the bill is about.  And since the committee's business is largely controlled by the chairperson, if you can corrupt the chairperson, you can control the whole process.  Simply get a Rider tacked on to a bill, buried in obfuscatory language, which people miss because a few lines of text in a 100 page bill can often get missed, and then voila, you have your pet project covered.  That's what Abramoff's interview is talking about here. -- Jayron 32 16:36, 29 October 2018 (UTC)