Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-05-21
WHAT'S IN A NAME.
The Criticism Upon Americas Place
Names by the Late Matthew Arnold.

Names by the Late Matthew Arnold.
EDS. REcoRD-UNIoS Your paper has
made repeated allusion to the article writ
ten by the late Matthew Arnold for the
Nineteenth Century on the quality of the
civilization professed by the United States.
The fair and candid spirit in which that
article is written, and the literary fame and
eminence of the author, have invested it
with an importance not usually accorded
to the ephemeral production OF British
magazines.
There is much in our institutions no
doubt which does not recommend them to
the mind of scholarly old-word dilettante
as was the late Matthew Arnold. When,
however, Mr.. Arnold frames an indictment
against Americans for that alleged want of
taste in the bestowai of place-names, the
former may palliate their shortcomings by
pointing to examples of English communi-
ties who have solved the nomenclature
problem even less happily than they. APP
pearances notwithstanding, Americans
have shown more originality and good
taste in their naming of places than any
band of colonizers which has left the
shores of the mother country. An insti-
tuting of comparisons will prove this and
as good an example as | know is furnished
by England's colonial possessions in the
Southern ocean. The latter set out on
their careers at a much later date in the
worlds history than America, and in their
bestowal of place-names have had the ex-
ample of this country to profit by, as well
as that of England.
A reference to facts proves that the no.
menclature of Australia is so cumbrous
and ill-adapted to present wants that bill
has been introduced into one of the Colo
NAL Parliament for repeating it. In the
words of the London Spectator, 1.-THE settlers
of New South Wales have suddenly woke
up to the fact that the name of their COL
ony is ill-reputed, cumbrous to use, and in
capable of an adjective, and have resolved
to change it." Cooksylvania has been sug-
gested as a substitute, which, if it be
adopted, will be the best testimony to the
superiority of Americas system of place
naming that could be adduced. The names
of the adjacent colonies of Victoria and
Queensland are, from a periphrastical point
OF view, less Objectionable, but even in
these instances is illustrated that barren
ness and fertility of invention which Mr..
Arnold would have his readers believe is
confined to the American people alone.
Urban and oppidan nomenclature in
Australia is more uncouth and ear-offend-
ing than any which obtains in America, as
glance at the glossary of an Australian
atlas will show. Excursiveness at the An
tipodes must be at low ebb, when the
sponsor of bush settlement has to hunt
among the Balearic Islands for a name to
call his hamlet by. Compared with Ma
jorca, Syracuse" is preferable any day J;
and OF native names, which is prettier,
Pensacola or Woogaroo, Lackawanna or
Yackandandah2
Where the names of places in Australia
are not native and hideous, as in the exam
piles Just quoted, they are grossly initiative,
showing thereby poverty of imagination
which is objectionable. The names of
half the towns in Ireland are perpetuated
in Australia-and such names as Mel
bourne, Rockingham, Keppel and Card
well, denote the servile love for an aristo-
cratic caste, which is incompatible with
those manly and independent traits
which one would expect in race of hardy
colonists. What did the administration OF
Viscount Melbourne accomplish that the
name of the head of it should be given to
port whose commerce, even at this early
stage in its history, surpasses that of
ancient Carthage?
The place-names prevailing in the two
continents illustrate aptly the indepen-
ucuCc vi iAOuBuI anu dUuOlIeUC6 Vi COQ-
vention displayed in the one case, and the
slavish spirit of imitation exhibited in the
other.
Men of leisurely habits like the late
Craven scholar, are apt to overlook the TACT
that the pioneers of a continent have little
time to cast about for mellifluous- sounding
place names. The latter are imposed arbi-
trarily, and under the pressure of occasion,
with no thought of how they may sound
to ears whose sense is more delicate and
refined than his who clears forest. Ana
lying Mr.. Arnold's objections more closely,
what is there in the place names which he
adduces as characteristic instances of
American bad taste, to offend the sense OF
beauty? In the instances he cites-Briggs-
vile, Jacksonville, Higginsville, etc-does
the faint of barbarism adhere in the first
syllables of the names, or in their common
suffix? If the former, then whatever is
pure Saxon and early English is ugly, and
if the latter, then the Roman villa or Nor
man vile is uncouth. If a new country
must to some extent be dependent on the
nomenclature of an older one, are not TROY
Ilium and athens, Infinitely preferable to
Windsor, Claremont and Hurlinghame :?
Yet because America chooses to perpetuate
in certain of her towns the names of classic
cities, she gets hauling over the Goals,
while Australia, with a borrowed nomen-
clature that has not even antiquity to rec
ommend it, is permitted to pass uncrit-
icised.
Briggsville is not "congenial" to us any
more than Los Angeles. Both are ex-
tremes, between whose limits occur a
hundred thousand place names remarkable
for neither beauty nor ugliness. Our
suffices of polls sylvania, and vile are as
defensible as the English thorp and hame.
and have the authority of classic usage, as
opposed to merely local and insular The
Greek polls is an excellent suffix, and when
allied with native word-instance Mime
apolis. the combination makes an entirely
unobjectionable place name. IfAmericans
choose TO reiDcubate Rome in Minnesota,
or Carthage in New Mexico, the affair is
their own, and English critics, of all critics
in the world, should be the last to point out
an incongruity in the custom. British
Philistine, with less excuses have per-
petrated far greater absurdities in Australia
and Canada, than ever have the people of
the United States.
The sum of the matter is that 'any
word not absolutely scacophonous, or be-
fouled by evil associations, will do as well
as any other, for it is history, not foresight,
which makes the name of a country great.
Who knows whence Rome came, or re-
members in tongue not Roman the word
| meant strength? Or what does it matter
that America is but the feminine of the
odd Christian name of the obscure Floren-
tine, who was not the first to discover the
New World? CRITIC.
Folsom Nav IL 1893