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geography quiz

merlyn on 2004-01-16T06:29:16

What two and only two places in the US can you find a sequence of roughly adjacent streets named:

  • Arlington
  • Berkeley
  • Clarendon
  • Dartmouth
  • Exeter
  • Fairfield
  • Gloucester
  • Hereford
  • Ipswich
  • Jersey
  • Kenmore

Bonus question: why do I know this list from memory?

hmm

spur on 2004-01-16T09:57:03

Because you live in one of these places ?

Also, all the names start with the running sequence A,B,C...K , which makes it easier to remember.

funny street names

rjbs on 2004-01-16T13:24:05

Well, at least one is Portland, I suppose? I seem to remember something cute like that going on with street names.

Also, while walking around OSCON, someone laughed at my pronunciation of some important street name which, apparently, everyone who isn't from Portland mispronounced. What is it? (I really don't remember.)

I was also mocked for mentioning the WILL-a-met river.

Re:funny street names

merlyn on 2004-01-16T16:47:35

No, the Alphabetical sequence in Portland begins with Burnside (Couch, Davis, Everett, Flanders [doh!], Glisan, Hoyt, Irving, Johnson, Kearney, Lovejoy, Marshall, Northrup, Overton, Pettygrove, Quimby, Raleigh, Savier, Thurman, Upshur, Vaughn, Wilson). Good guess though.

As for funny pronounciations, perhaps it was "couch", which is pronounced "Cooooch", apparently to honor the person it was named after. Apparently, these names come from local historical figures.

Re:funny street names

rjbs on 2004-01-16T19:18:09

Couch! Good spotting. (Also, Quimby is another good Simpsons reference street.)

Re:funny street names

jhorwitz on 2004-01-20T01:24:39

as is lovejoy (the reverend). i smell a conspiracy.

Re:funny street names

petdance on 2004-01-17T14:32:06

When I was living in Durango, Colorado, I lived on Florida Road, which is prounounced "Fluh-REED-uh".

Here in Chicago, there's also a Goethe street, pronounced "GO-thee" (soft th, not hard).

Re:funny street names

jdporter on 2004-01-18T03:53:05

The difference, being, of course, that "Flor-EE-da" is how the name "ought" to be pronounced, whereas "GO-thee" is Just Totally Wrong. But sometimes I think maybe it's better to be entirely wrong than just a little wrong. Hearing it pronounced "Gerta" really rubs me the wrong way.

It's...

barbie on 2004-01-16T13:28:39

Boston.

As to why you remember them I have no idea. A friend of mine was an au-pair there years ago, and she found it amusing that a many of the streets were named after British towns and cities :)

Re:It's...

merlyn on 2004-01-16T16:05:53

Yes, Back Bay in Boston is one of them. But where's the other one?

Re:It's...

marc on 2004-01-16T17:49:26

Looks like it's Gladstone, Oregon, but I cheated and used Google.

Living in Boston, they're committed to my memory because that makes it easier to stumble home drunk.

Re:It's...

merlyn on 2004-01-16T18:06:27

Yes! It's Gladstone! I grew up there for the first 13 years of my life.

The first time I set foot in Boston's back bay (for a web conference back in 98, I think it was), I was at a hotel on Dartmouth street, and when I started exploring, my jaw dropped.

"I know these street names!"

So I set up this quiz to record this unusual fact.

Thanks for cheating. {grin} But I doubt it would have come out any other way.

Re:It's...

lilstevey on 2004-01-16T18:15:11

And there I was thinking it was Birmingham, Alabama - close, but I didn't check close enough, my only excuse can be that its almost time to hit the pub.

Common Wealth Street, for the bonus question?

lilstevey on 2004-01-16T17:48:04

Could it be that travelling down it you pass these roads in alphabetical order?

from multimap

Re:It's...

lilstevey on 2004-01-16T17:58:12

Barbie, does that smiley imply that you know what I've just found out?

Re:It's...

jdporter on 2004-01-18T04:28:08

Well, that's an au pair for ya. Anybody with half a brain wouldn't find it amusing. Hell, Boston itself was named after a British town. It is "New England", after all. Every geographic feature there is named after a place in England, or else it has an Indian name. (To overgeneralize a little...)

O.k., just for fun, here are the names of the 50 states, categorized by the origin of the name.

Indian names (mostly names of tribes in the area):
Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi,
Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Wisconsin, Wyoming

Named after English persons:
Delaware, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia

Named for places in England:
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New York

Neo-classical:
California
Indiana

Spanish:
Arizona
Colorado
Florida
Montana
Nevada

French:
Maine
Vermont

Seems like the Spanish and French preferred to assign names which were descriptive of the terrain/climate. In this regard, California ought to be lumped in with the Spanish names. (and maybe Indiana could be lumped with the Indian names, even though it isn't one...)

Re:It's...

barbie on 2004-01-19T06:22:17

Well, that's an au pair for ya

Hence the smiley.

Did you also know there are a 'Hollywood' and 'California' here in Birmingham, UK.

Re:It's...

drhyde on 2004-01-20T08:47:06

And there's a Maryland in east London.

Re:It's...

avik on 2004-01-19T23:02:18

Dont' forget other French names:

Illinois, Des Moines, Detroit, Terre Haute, Racine, Baton Rouge

tonns of them ...

Re:It's...

jdporter on 2004-01-21T18:04:04

Ooh, I made one mistake when I typed this up. (I had thought of it earlier, but forgot.) Namely:

Louisiana is named for a French person, not an English person.