Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 March 7

= March 7 =

not using them anymore
Have we a category or lists of obsolete place-names like Mercia and Neustria? I particularly want regions (whether or not they were ever political entities) that have no close equivalent on modern maps. —Tamfang (talk) 10:14, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
 * You might try List of pre-modern states, List of former sovereign states, and others in Category:Lists of former countries. Deor (talk) 10:48, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Mercia is an obsolete placename? That depends on how you define such terms. Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 16:48, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, the The Mercian Regiment or the West Mercia Police might also disagree. Alansplodge (talk) 18:24, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Indeed. This is what happens when someone thinks they are the great poobah, who lives in the land of Allthatmatters. In reality, they are just one individual amongst others in the thick of things, and their personal experiences are not any more important than their neighbours'. Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 19:08, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I happily accept the correction. —Tamfang (talk) 23:40, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
 * In truth, I think a category of obsolete placenames has the simple issue of being "mobile" if you will. In other words, some influential individual could just decide one day to name buildings after every single thing that would be included in that list just out of irony or the like. Or, someone could fondly remember a name from bygone days and name a new town after it.
 * Any number of things could occur to make said placenames no longer obsolete. Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 00:15, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I had in mind that such names could be a theme for, e.g., features on some hitherto uncharted moon. (That's why I'm not interested in Medeis's obsolete phrases.) —Tamfang (talk) 06:53, 11 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Yes, I enjoy this. There is Austrasia, which you may know of, having mentioned Neustria.  Also Burgundy, Lotharingia, and Prussia.  There are the Kalmar Union and the Hanseatic League.  There are empires like the Polish–Lithuanian union and Austro-Hungarian Empire which no longer exist, but which have rump successors. There is Carpathian Ruthenia which was sovereign for a day after the Nazis seized the rest of what was then (greater) Czechoslovakia as well as the West Ukrainian People's Republic. Prior to that, the Kingdom of Ruthenia existed in the middle ages, with Lemberg (now Lviv in Ukraine) as its capital.  There were Castile and Aragon in different forms, and Aquitaine and Normandy.  There are even Florin and Guilder, but they may be apocryphal. μηδείς (talk) 19:54, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Interestingly, those only became obsolete in 2002. -- Jayron 32 00:44, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
 * The names Burgundy, Lotharingia (=Lorraine, German Lothringen), Kalmar, Poland, Lithuania, Austria, Hungary, Ukraine, Castile, Aragon, Normandy are still in use. —Tamfang (talk) 23:40, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I think that might have been a bit of snark on Medeis' part, but correct me if I am wrong. ;) Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 00:15, 8 March 2015 (UTC)


 * No "snarking", I just meant that they used to be separate jurisdictions with different boundaries but now exist only as smaller and separate (and often dependent) provinces. Lotharingia used to border on the North Sea and the Mediterranean, for example.  And I did not mention "Kalmar, Poland, Lithuania, Austria, Hungary," or "Ukraine" separately (why falsely imply I did?) but as parts of other entities. The only joke, which I made quite obvious, was Guilder and Florin. μηδείς (talk) 04:16, 8 March 2015 (UTC)


 * We used to refer to quite a bit of the unmappable world as pictures of dragons. That'll get you hissed out of cartography school these days, I'd bet. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:30, 8 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Ever play Where's Waldo?, but with the Cimarchia Inferior? InedibleHulk (talk) 00:43, 8 March 2015 (UTC)