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Date:         Sat, 9 Jan 1993 21:10:39 -0500
From:         Eileen Margerum <EMARGERUM@RCNVMS.RCN.MASS.EDU>
Subject: Re: On Eire and Edinburg(h) (was Re: First major problem in
              London)
Comments: To: words-l@uga.cc.uga.edu

<Theres not an h at the end of Edinburg, TX, is there?
     <No, and there isnt one in Edinburg, MO, either, I wonder why...
In 1890, Benjamin Harrison appointed a Board on Geographical Names
to settle nomenclature differences between the various government
departments. In 1906, Teddy Roosevelt changed the boards name to the United
States Geographical Board to determine,change and fix such names
as it deemed necessary.  It was an early attempt at a New WORD order.

This Board simplified names whenever possible.  Burgh became burg.
Borough became boro.  Punctuation was eliminated (Saint Marys lost its
apostrophe.)  The Commonwealth of Massachusetts still insists on spelling
its towns Northborough, Westborough, Southborough and the like while the
Feds insist on Northboro, Southboro, Westboro. The USGS maps show the Merrimack

River.  Massachusetts Maps show the Merrimac.  And they say that were the
liberals!!

        <pronunciation

        <What we have here is ignorance of your own history and an inability
        to tell the difference between place names of Scottish origin
        <and German origin.

There arent any aitches in Gaelic except as diacritical marks.  In Gaelic,
Edinburgh, Scotland, is Dunedin  na h-Alba.  Try to get yer letter delivered
with that address.  It would probably be lost somewhere between Dunedin FL
and Albany GA.  It seems to me that Edinburgh is of German origin, founded as
 ththe capital of the kingdom of Northumbria as Edwins Burg (or fort).  Are the
English Germans?  I guess not.  A Scotsman once told me that
English is an adjective, never a noun.  The proper noun is bastard.

For inventiveness, Edinburg TX or Edinboro PA just dont measure up.  The winner
for phonetic originalty in imitating THE ATHENS OF THE NORTH is EMBRO
ONT.  First runner up in the great Edinburghs of the world is the capital of
Tristan da Cuna, which may be the only Edinburgh which is capital of a
real country.  Scotlands only claims to nationhood seem to be a
pitiable national soccer team and the belief of English bs that they
are a nation.

Send all your letters to Edimbourg Texas. (Sacre Bleu...cest sans
aitch.)  French is theoretically the lingua franca of the Universal Postal
Union.

        <there was a movement in the US to standardize such place names
        <without the silent h. But this fair city refused to go along with those
         spelling prescriptivists, and we were big enough and strong enough
        <to make it stick

        <Uts not a silent h, pillock.  urgh is a morpheme which is pronounced /
        < /uru/

Pittsburghers sit around picking jaggers out of their thumbs, eating
jumbos and saying, Im proud to be a pillock.  They havent the foggiest
what a pillock is, but they get the general impression they are being
insulted and there is nothing they enjoy more.  If they didnt thrive on abuse
 ththeyd have moved somewhere else long ago.  As they say, there is no
way to get the h out of Pittsburgh.

I am glad to learn that morpheme is pronounced /uru/.  You can probably use
urgh in spelling the other American Pittsburgs and Edinburgs, but only
if you have a prescription for morpheme use.  Just say no to H?

Britain has absurd historically and linguistically incorrect spellings just like
America, particularly in the Celtic fringe where the mapmakers got the
names and spellings from illiterate Sassenach landlords.  Muck, a lovely
island with an ugly name was Muc,(the dolphin) in Gaelic.  Their pronunciation
was sometimes weird too.  Brits pronounce their Shrewsbury Shrows-brie
while in Massachusetts we pronounce it right-Shoos Bee.

Where do the Burmese get off telling us to call their country Myanmar?
We dont accord the Suomis, Helvetians, Magyars or Norgevians the same
forbearance.  And what about those Greeks who would go to war over the name
Macedonia, which my dictionary defines as a fruit cup.

        Ed Margerum in the Witch City
        emargerum@rcnvms.rcn.mass.edu
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