History Lesson No. 1: Geography
Have you ever wondered how various countries and states got their names? Me too. In fact, it has been a lifelong quest for me to find out. Good news! As a result of my extensive research, I can now share my findings with you.
Let’s start with the country they now call Crimea. Obviously, there were plenty of tears shed during its formation, as they shortened it from “Cry Me a River.” Yes, the shorter, the better.
After the breakup of the Soviet Union, a rather prominent and well-respected political leader was making an important speech. However, the microphone malfunctioned, and the audience only heard the first few words of his address, which began, “As it stands….” He was also a very guttural speaker, and with the poor sound quality, they thought he was announcing the name of their new country, which therefore became Kazakhstan.
The derivation of another of the former Soviet states is quite interesting. I discovered that the children’s book character Curious George was quite popular in that part of the world. Deciding to actually name a country after him became rather controversial, as many wanted to call it Cute Little Brown Monkey. Most found that too difficult to say, and the acronym CLBM didn’t work either. So they simply decided to call it Georgia.
Our forefathers wanted to honor the father of our country (there sure were a lot of fathers back then) in a very special way. As luck would have it, they had recently eased the plight of our foremothers, who spent hours and hours doing laundry every day. They invented the washing machine, and were so excited about their success that they decided to actually name our nation’s capital Washing Machine. The foremothers explained that their machine was so efficient, it was actually washing tons of clothes. So they agreed to call it Washington, which coincidently, was George’s last name. In keeping with that theme, they added the initials D.C., which stood for dry cleaning.
It seems there was a rather unpopular man named Jasper, who lived on an island off the coast of Africa. He was literally hated by all; it was quite universal. So they began calling their country Mad at Jasper, which the English pronounced as Madagascar.
In the Caribbean, there was another island where the main export was a very rare and exotic potion, developed by the natives. They sold lots and lots of it for a very long time. However, there were some nasty side effects due to overuse, and people complained to the natives, saying “Jamaking me crazy with this stuff.” From that time on, that country was referred to as Jamaica.
And of course, we all know the many stories people have told about Babe Ruth. Here’s one that’s absolutely true. The Sultan of Swat was with his beloved Yankees, playing a double header in an exhibition game in an adjoining state. His famous uniform bearing his Number 3 was filthy after the first game. So he yelled over to the equipment manager, “Hey fella (he called everyone fella), gimmie (he said gimmie a lot too) me a new jersey.” That name stuck, boys and girls, and the rest is history.
Tagged as: Geography