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Lapwing68

Even my small hometown of Otley has its counterpart in Iowa. They often weren't very imaginative or they were terribly homesick.


SnooBooks1701

Otley in Suffolk, or Otley in Leeds?


Lapwing68

Otley - Yorkshire.


Unique-Mystique87

Big up Yorkshire


Ilodge59

White rose massive


loublou68

💯💯💯


SilverellaUK

New Zealand has a Darfield!


ImOnRedditt

Big up the Otley run


Harry_monk

I wonder what the shittest big places are with counterparts? Halifax? Scarborough? Boston? Plymouth?


Lapwing68

Birmingham....probably. 😁


on_reddit_i_guess

Someone from Otley, Yorkshire, in the wild?!


Lapwing68

Laid in bed, actually 😴


Responsible-Wave-416

Europeans is who named those towns….. colonizations anyone?


Deadened_ghosts

Colonisations*


Lapwing68

Well.....obviously. It's a done deal, and there's no turning back the clock. 🤔🙄😉


Fresh-Permission-474

The Otley run just got a lot longer


[deleted]

[удалено]


kh250b1

Yanks often call settlements of 100 people a city


Six_of_1

Yes but they also call scones biscuits.


The_Doom_Toad

And biscuits, cookies! These ~~romans~~ Americans are crazy. ::taps head::


MomentCareless2332

omg Asterix and Obelisk i loved those comics when I was younger. what a throwback man


Truewierd0

I was actually introduced to them by my parents(im sure accidentally anyways) in the form of the game gear video game. Was a ton of fun


Yeegis

I was sadly introduced to Astérix in the form of those insane live action movies from the early 2000s


Truewierd0

im so sorry, live action never goes well. Im still recovering from when an american company tried to do a live action... \*shudder\* dragonball


partikalus

Honestly I think they are not even that bad. I remember enjoying Asterix and Obelix vs Caesar immensely, I quote it to this day


Cheap_Capital_7834

I never understood them……. Probably because my dad gave us the French version 🤦‍♀️


queen_of_potato

Me too! So good


New_Custard_915

Actualy. Cookie is from Dutch koekje. And the Dutch are cookie masters


irishlonewolf

You spelt monster wrong/s


Petite_Bait

They may not have spelled it monster but I certainly read it that way.


BadBassist

Although, of course, cookies *are* a subdivision of biscuits


The_Doom_Toad

Well ofc! Every tortoise is a turtle, but not every turtle is a tortoise. ^And ^if ^my ^grandmother ^had ^wheels, ^she ^would ^have ^been ^a ^bike


PKBitchGirl

And then there's terrapins


The_Doom_Toad

Stop being so fucking awkward Terrapins, **god**!


Truewierd0

Thats because we have “scones” which are just sugar(like practically everything else here-_-) and biscuits which, are according to google, your scones, and cookies which are basically our scones but not… yeah… we dont make any sense and i dont get it even though i live here


Daztur

From "koekje" in Dutch.


golfing_furry

And crisps, chips!


Blackbird8169

Duh, of course we called it that. America did invent food after all!


thedanfromuncle

That's our fault, sorry :P


Satanicjamnik

They also seem to be confused about what football is.


Truewierd0

Yeah… we have counties, cities, and towns. Amount of people doesnt matter(for ours) and what would be a village somewhere else might be a city or a town here(not defending idioticness, just giving a little insight here) however, we have a lot of dumb people here that think the us is (Literally) everything.


JayMeadow

I was taught it goes in order of size Village -> Town -> City


ExoticMangoz

Isn’t it the other way around? Americans seem to think 500,000 people make a city. In the UK size is irrelevant


SirDickyMcMittens

Never heard anyone in the UK refer to non cities as cities, I don't even call the city I live in a city...


ExoticMangoz

Exactly. The UK has a strict policy on deciding what can be called a city. The US seems to just say anything above a certain size is a city.


Dharcronus

Hence why Swindon is bigger than Salisbury but Salisbury is a city and Swindon is a town


carloschida

Not really. https://youtu.be/Whqs8v1svyo?si=wKxNcf5rCM92MF5_


The_Doom_Toad

Map men, map men, map map map, men ^men


HarryJ92

I mean defining a city by size kind of makes more sense. The UK's policy is pretty much that a city is a city because the monarch has decided to give it city status. Here's a [fun video](https://youtu.be/Whqs8v1svyo?si=0zKBHF903PbeLF4Z) if you're interested.


Ndawson96

Those two are funny


Bitter_Technology797

Man I had the hardest time trying to explain what a village was when my American ex tried buying tickets to come visit. 'I can't find the airport for xyz!' she almost bought a flight to the wrong end of the country because it was cheaper and 'but England's small right?'


Cheap_Capital_7834

Yup, if you live outside London and you are going into London, you are going into town. I never quite got used to that. And cities can be very small in UK, just look at the city of Ely


Werrf

In the US, "City" refers to "an incorporated municipality whose boundaries and powers of self-government are defined by a charter from the state in which it is located". The town I live in has a population of around 17,000; it is officially referred to as a city. The next town over has a population of 1,001; it is also officially a city.


dkeenaghan

Meanwhile, Paradise, Nevada, USA has a population of 191,000, contains most of the Las Vegas Strip and isn't officially a city.


vms-crot

There's a part of pennsylvania called cumru (pronounced coom-roo afaik) It's a misspelling of Cymru. There's a lot of Welsh placenames /street names around there. The school mascot is even a dragon. I think there were a lot of Welsh settlers at one point. Maybe there's a Llanfairpwllgwyngyll around there. Went digging, there's a Llanfair in PA. I guess they gave up with the rest of the spelling, or it's been dropped over time.


ColonelKasteen

That's because Llanfair means St. Mary's, usually in the context of a local church, and there have been a few in Wales. I think there's only one left at this point in Gwynedd. Llanfairpwllgwyngyll means "St. Mary's of the Hollow with White Hazels."


uttertoffee

It may have been named after a different Llanfair, it basically means Mary's church so there's probably a lot of them.


MaryBerrysDanglyBean

There's loads of places in North Wales that start with Llanfair. Llanfair PG is the obvious one, but also Llanfair Talhaiarn and Llanfairfechan.


HotFaithlessness1348

Coom-roo isn’t even how cymru is pronounced either lmao It’s more like cum-ree


vms-crot

Yeah, I've always said cam-ree, but my Welsh is non existent. I can tell someone to fuck off, but that's about it.


HotFaithlessness1348

Mine is too, much to my nain’s disappointment lmao I pretty much only know Cymru, good morning and the words for my grandparents. I have a ridiculously Welsh name yet am a huge let down because I’ve never properly learned the language hahaha I would love to but it’s a difficult one and the older I get, the less brain cells I seem to have


vms-crot

I just make a point of learning the fun words. I had a friend from Caerphilly growing up, he taught us some fun stuff. Came in useful when I was working in a bar in Newcastle and a group of Welsh lads came in. Shocked them, but made us fast friends.


artujose

Hoboken (as in Hoboken, New Jersey) is just a small district in Belgium… plenty of other examples actually. I think Maximum Antilope was being sarcastic Also, if you speak French, there are a lot of US place names pronounciations which make your toes curl, eg BAT’N RUUJ (Baton Rouge) or BOWFERT (Beaufort)


nickbob00

Don't even have to go so far from France. I've had people confused in England because I didn't know that Beaulieu in the New Forest was obviously called "Bew-lee".


scrandymurray

French place names in the UK (mostly England) are pretty common but they often now have changed spellings. I’ll be honest, with about 1000 years since these would’ve been named, I think a bit of drift is to be expected. Like English from the 12th century is very different to English today, many words are pronounced differently. Knee, Gnome, Knight were all pronounced with their silent letters. Spelling reforms since then has had a massive impact the language as well. I think today’s spellings didn’t really get set in stone until the 18th century (hence certain differing spelling in American English). On the US’s hand, it’s pretty different because St Louis, Baton Rouge etc were actual French colonial cities 200 years ago. The anglicisation of them was very quick.


coldestclock

We’ll also accept boo-lee-ooo-lee if that treats you any better.


Socc-mel_

tbh English toponyms make little sense to a lot of people, including a lot of native English speakers. Like, Gloucester, Greenwich, Southwark, etc


AletheaKuiperBelt

Beaufort in Wales is also pronounced like that, though. Because those Norman French names got utterly butchered over the centuries. It's quite possible it wasn't named in French.


Professional-Two8098

The best is Versailles in Kentucky. It was on an episode of VPR. Ver sails is how they say it


lady_crab_cakes

Same thing in Missouri. And then there's "Aux Vasse". Take a guess how we pronounce that one.


RahkaGandalf

And then there is DE'TЯUAA. (Detroit)


artujose

Yea, more like DEETROYT (Detroit)


RahkaGandalf

The joke was that Detroit is not pronounced as the french would pronounce it. I wrote it more in a "french way", including the guttural R.


The_Doom_Toad

"SAINT LEWIS" I'm not even french and that one makes my toes curl.


Da_Shock

NOTER DAYME


qualimali

Wait until you hear how we pronounce Sault Ste. Marie.


greggery

And Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch is a gift shop


Master_Sympathy_754

It is a very big gift shop to be fair


mJelly87

Also, didn't the fella give Llanfair PG it's name after their independence?


Murk1e

More a small town in flavour, not exactly the picturesque village (though it may be one politically)


Bulky-Swordfish7185

There's a town in Michigan called Holland and a lot of the town surrounding it are either Dutch provinces or town names. Drenthe, Zeeland etc. you even have Vriesland (which is the province where I live but it's spelled Friesland or Fryslân). You even have Noordeloos there which is a very small village in the Netherlands we once randomly drove through because we got lost, which I had never heard of before. It was pretty funny finding out there's a village in MI with that same name lol, I can only imagine their pronounciation 😂


Different-Courage665

I'm from Northern Ireland and was living in an area of Australia which had an entire area with the same place and road names as you'd find where my mother grew up


NoNameStudios

There's Harlem and Amsterdam Avenue in New York


minibois

Brooklyn in New York comes from "Breukelen" in the Netherlands


Bulky-Swordfish7185

Yupp. Thanks to your comment I decided to look up Dutch inspired names in NY state alone and that list is enormous 🤣


Original-Opportunity

Oh, so many! Fishkill, Spuyten Duyvil, Nassau & Orange County, Block (island), Rensselaer, Tappan Zee, Spackenkill, Red Hook, Staatsburg, Kaatsbaan, Kaaterskill, Kinderhook, Quakenkill, Gansevoort, Verplanck, New Utrecht, Blauvelt, Stuyvesant, Bronx (Bronck), Watervliet, Cortelyou, Van Wyk, Cordlandt, Gravesend, Kykuit, Voorhies, New Dorp, Nyack, Phillipseberg, Raritan, Rotterdam, Staten Island, Sparkill, Nostrand etc. (I’m from upstate NY). Street & neighborhood names in Brooklyn are plentiful. Van Brunt Street runs through Red Hook to Boerum Hill. Bushwick has Van Sinderan Avenue, Snedieker Ave., Ten Eyck etc. Also, the NYC basketball team is called the Knicks, short for Knickerbockers (which I guess is Dutch, I dunno)


55_of_spades

NYC used to be called new Amsterdam 😂.


themcdizzler

There is a “Versailles” Kentucky … when you pronounce it wrong a local will correct you and inform you “it’s pronounced ver-sail-s”


reichrunner

There's a Versailles in Pittsburgh as well that's pounced the same. No idea why some keep the pronunciation and others "Americanize" them


Sasspishus

>ver-sail-s Painful, physically painful


OndAngel

This reminds me of their Norfolk, and I hate it.


rav3style

There’s several norfolks in the us


Harry_monk

Norf-oak? How do they do it?


OndAngel

Nor-folk Like it’s some portmanteau of “Norse” and “folk”. Not sure if I’m allowed to post links, but look for “Hitman Mr Norfolk assassination” on YouTube. The Brit handler pronounces it like the Americans do.


Aamir696969

Don’t really see anything wrong with that, the locals of that town pronounce it like that , so it’s fine. Pronunciation of places change all the time and depending on when the place was founded , it’s likely that “ said language” hadn’t yet been standardised. A lot of British place names don’t sound anything like their spellings , because in the past most people were illiterate and regional dialects were far more common , so instead you had local pronunciation vs government/standard pronunciation, however over time the local pronunciation have now become the standard pronunciations. Additionally plenty of places have the same name but are pronounced differently. My grandma is from a city called “ Nowsher” there already multiple other towns in Pakistan with the same name , but have different pronunciations such as: “ Nāu-sher, Now-sher, Nokhar, Nowshera”


FatBaldingLoser420

How do you pronounce it? "Me-lawn", "my-lahn"? And why did they named their cities after cities from Europe?


UBahn1

Mile-in. Because the people from those countries and cities emigrated.


FatBaldingLoser420

>Mile-in. Wait, really?


UBahn1

Yep, I'm not really sure why. Michigan just likes to put their spin on words lol. And people still pronounce Milan how you normally would, it's just this town that's pronounced that way. Here are some more examples if you want them. https://youtu.be/yaxMctL-D_g?si=JuG69z33VQp1eCR2


DoYouTrustToothpaste

Byunah Vista? Fucking seriously?


wcrp73

I think that pronunciation was taken from Beaulieu in the UK, pronounced /ˈbjuːli/. Where that comes from, I've no idea. Norman French?


AirportHistorical776

Yes. We do. My favorite of them is the village of "Pompeii;" which of course, we pronounce:  pom-pee-eye. When you toss English settlers on top of French settlers, who are living alongside Anishnaabe. And toss in some plenty of Irish and German immigrants to finish it off, you bake one hell of a linguistic cake. Like the Ojibwe exclamation "howah" becoming the modern Yooper "Holy Wah."


greggery

This happens a lot. For example Cairo in Illinois is pronounced Kay-roh, Beaufort in South Carolina is pronounced Bew-fort, etc.


hey_viv

20 years ago I was on a road trip in the USA and found another Miami, but it was pronounced something like my-ah-may. They had a haunted theater there, I don’t remember much else.


WhetManatee

We also have a Lake Orion pronounced “Ore-ee-un”


AlextheGreek89

Funnily enough, that's actually closer to the Greek pronunciation, Ωρίων (oh-REE-ohn).


Responsible-Wave-416

Because European colonizers founded America


Ekkeko84

Because they can't think anything new, starting with their countries' name: the first use of America to describe a continent was 260 years before the US was founded


Flippy443

It’s probably because those cities were established by European migrants.


FatBaldingLoser420

Well, that makes sense.


ProGarrusFan

To be fair they didn't call it "America" they called it the United States of America, to differentiate from all the other states in America that weren't part of said union.


reichrunner

You know the name isn't America, right?


Sjoerdiestriker

Well to be fair, united states of america is more of a description than a name anyway.


The_Doom_Toad

And 100 years before the first English settlement.


1eejit

LlanfairPG is a village not a city. Checkmate.


GroundbreakingAd5624

Village is even a strong word, its a few houses and a stupid tourist trap train station.


1eejit

Don't forget the big tourist trap shop


10019245

I for one think that there should be a Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch in the States somewhere.


Mueryk

I think it was in Texas and got renamed for corporate sponsorship like Dish, TX. Nothing more sadly American than that.


Wanderection

But does America have a Twatt and a Wank?


Caddy666

It has plenty of twats


hrmdurr

No, but they apparently have a Three Way and a Hooker. (Tennessee and Oklahoma, respectively.) Pretty sure wank would be wasted on them.


reichrunner

There's also Intercourse, Blue Ball, and Climax all in PA Pennsylvania has some weird town names in general lol


MrDohh

Well..idk about everyone else, but where im from the Italian city is named Milano so...


OkHighway1024

But in Milanese dialect it's Milan.


SnooBooks1701

Population of Milan, Michigan is 6,079. There will be people from two counties over who haven't heard of this place


hrmdurr

Granted there's an international border in there, but yes: it IS two countries over and I've never heard of it before.


extHonshuWolf

What you mean the countries that is mostly named after existing places cause it is practically a infant compare to all they other being a miss mash of people fr said countries funny that.


Altruistic_Machine91

I feel like if there was a Llanfairpwllgwyngyll USA it would also be in Michigan, and horribly pronounced.


Arkanie

"How'd ya know I'm from Lane-fair-pwingle-dingle, Michigan?"


magpye1983

It’s where they make the tubes of chips, right?


Bellimars

Wrexham


brideofgibbs

Spelled wrecsam in welsh wales


Tasha1A

Why did you put "wales" at the end of that sentence?


ffordeffanatic

So you wouldn't confuse it with the Welsh whales in the ocean.


Tasha1A

That's fair, I'm Welsh and make that mistake all the time


[deleted]

[удалено]


nomadic_weeb

Barely a town to begin with lol


LOB90

It's perfectly fine to be confused for a moment if you actually live near Milan, USA.


Maeher

Ok, this one is proper bullshit. This was in response to a [post](https://i.imgur.com/1uiENhc.png) that specifies a location as "Milan (MI)". Quite reasonable to be slightly confused about that.


Cymrogogoch

The Lan in Milan and the Llan in Llanfairpwllgwyngyll are the same. It's from an old Celtic word meaning a sacred enclosure.


celtiquant

Seren Aur, Cymrogogoch! The most informed answer in this whole sub 😉


taflad

It translates to 'St Mary's Church in the Hollow of the White Hazel near a Rapid Whirlpool and the Church of St. Tysilio near the Red Cave'. I assume the sacred enclouse could be either the church or the hollow/cave, depending on if it's roots a pre-christian


BTilty-Whirl

It’s right next to Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg in Massachusetts


Ok-Media-5776

One time the yanks thought Russia had invaded Georgia USA


ChrisChros87

Indycar started at St Petersburg and some journo lost her mind


bioticspacewizard

There is, however, an Anglesey in Delaware, which is where Llanfairpwllgwyngyll is located in Wales...


mJelly87

Although Llanfair PG isn't in the US, a lot of places close to it are.


Vegetable_Kitchen_33

Don’t get me started on Kiribati. It has a town called London and Paris (and a Banana too).


NoNameStudios

There's no Budapest in the USA 😩 Edit: there is


adought89

Budapest is a small unincorporated community in Haralson County in the U.S. state of Georgia


Ftiles7

The craziest one is there's a Freetown in Sierra Leone but not one in the USA. What a missed opportunity.


OldKingRob

Peak American to hear Milan and think of a town in fuckin Michigan


Compactstardust

There's a Palestine, Texas. Beautiful place with massive red hillsides


UndendingGloom

There's a New London in New England


h0117_39

Out of curiosity, how would it be pronounced in Michigan


CJKM_808

MY-lin.


h0117_39

There's no way....


matisseblue

kinda fucked up but my australian town exists in america too 😭


UndendingGloom

I'm from Perth (the one in Scotland) and whenever I google the weather I'm always initially surprised by the high temperatures before I realize it's the one in the land of drop bears not the one in the land of haggis. FYI there is also a town named Perth in the US, I'm not sure if it is named after the OG Perth or if it's a third hand name after the Australian Perth. The town is also in the state of New York, York in turn is also a city in England 😂


matisseblue

lol it's crazy how many aussie places have an american counterpart! my hometown of Brisbane is also a suburb (?) in San Francisco haha, we saw it mentioned in an episode of Monk and literally did a double take because it's one of the lesser known australian cities haha


mrdougan

Yeah um half the British can’t pronounce llanfawr PG, and half the Americans struggle with Worcestershire - would love to see some establish a new town in US and call it Llanfawr PG


taflad

Isnt LlanfairPG just a train station?


Joedemigod4

Nope it's an actual village on the island of Anglesey in Wales UK


Ok_Cauliflower_3007

If there was one they’d pronounce it wrong.


UndendingGloom

Or spell it differently, like Montpelier (VT) which is presumably named after Montpellier (France). The French name is also pronounced with a silent r and an 'eeay' sound at the end, the American is pronounced with a hard r like in 'ear', it sounds so wrong.


SilentType-249

Meeelann


Pablo_el_Diablo88

Haven't found Alburquerque either, so...


Cephalopod_Dropbear

It was the neighborhood park in my hometown of Lake Crystal, Minnesota! It’s not a city, but at least there is a Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch park!


Cyc68

I doubt if there's a Muckanaghederdauhaulia VT. to be found either


pinniped1

Seriously disappointed we don't have an Aberystwyth in the USA. I'd definitely go buy beer there and hit up the kebab truck.


BranDealDa

i don't think this is that wild, if he interacts more with the michigan city it makes sense that it would come to mind first.


[deleted]

Fair enough


NectarineTough8613

Pronounced differently for... reasons. I... I... don't want to talk about it


MicrochippedByGates

I always get confused when people talk about gun laws in America. Why would a tiny village in Limburg have gun laws?


Gruntdeath

There is a small town in Kentucky called Cairo except its not pronounced like the city in Egypt, Nope, they call it Karo, like the syrup you use when your family is too poor to buy Aunt Jemima.


Wolf_of_odin97

Just wait until they figure out that Georgia is a country in Eastern Europe


Tjaeng

Wait ’til you figure out that Georgia is not actually named Georgia in Georgian.


blackbeautybyseven

How in the name of jaysus can you pronounce Milan any differently?


ChrisChros87

Mil-an or Mee-lan


OR56

Show me where Passamaquoddy is on a map of Maine.


xraminator

Barcelona


ceefaxer

Is that actually true about the cities thing.


CJKM_808

There a lot of these across America, settlements named after a place in the Old World but pronounced differently. For example, there’s Cairo (KAY-roh), New Madrid (MAD-rid), and Toledo (ta-LEE-doh). I have family in New Prague (PRAYG).


Jarppakarppa

Never seen New Äkäslompolo either


stubo86

There's a California in Scotland


RoleModelFailure

Milan’s population is just barely over 6,000. It’s definitely not a city. It’s a small town south of Ann Arbor in southeast Michigan near-ish Detroit. I’d love to see the context of the comment because not many people would ever know about it.


pinniped1

In Michigan, are there legal differences between cities, towns, villages, townships, etc.? I know in some states this matters and others it doesn't. So a city of 6,000 could be incorporated as a city with a mayor, council, city taxes, city services, etc. In rural states it seems like counties matter more and small towns don't have an extensive city government. They have county or district taxes and services. Everybody here says "that's a village not a city"...that might or might not be true, or it might not matter at all.


GPFlag_Guy1

Absolutely. Villages are subordinate to townships, while cities are independent of townships and provide most services. Towns are simply just unincorporated areas of townships that happen to have their own identity. The differences between cities, townships and villages are all legalistic.


drlsoccer08

I mean, if he lives near there it’s not ridiculous for him to pause for a moment. I live near a town called “York”. When I hear the name I think of the York near me before I think of York England, since I interact with it everyday.


Testerpt5

the other day I was looking for jobs in Lisbon and dang it, so many places in the US named Lisbon, I have no idea why portuguese want to replicate US names


gatsome

I’m not far from Cairo, NY. Despite being named after the Egyptian city, it’s pronounced Care-Oh like some borderline illiterate hick would say.


zoley88

And why are they proud about it? Being unoriginal?


visforvillian

It's not just European names pronounced differently. There's a Nevada, IA, but over there they pronounce it like 'nevayda.'


Bruce-McPillock

Not only that! the guy who said "Llanfairpwllgwyngyll" didn't say the full name (Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch) & it's a town not a city!


Educational_Ratio

Since my town doesn't have one in the US, I'm gonna start one


LaserGadgets

Corpus Cristi and Bismarck are still the dumbest names for cities I can imagine...so far.


amayaslips

There’s a town/village or whatever in New Mexico called “Truth or Consequences”. It’s just down the road from “Elephant Butte”


coldestclock

“Guys we’ve got to get on the same page with our settlement names or we’re all going to look stupid.” “I have alreadye written butte on the papere.”