To be fed up with Americans naming their towns ...

[NotQuiteCockney]

after everywhere in Europe.

I'm trying to sort out a canoeing/kayaking break for myself.

So I'm trying to find canoe rentals in Oslo, or Geneva, or whatever. And I keep finding out about Oslo, Texas. Or Geneva, Tennessee.

Yes, Ontario is particularly sad.

Some place names in Canada are from Native words, at least.

They used to call saurkraut 'victory cabbage'. They went a bit amuk in the wars.

Yeah, there are some normal words from Native languages, too, aren't there? I mean, ok, nobody really says pemmican or whatever, but I'm pretty sure kayak is a Native word ...

aren't kayaks the little boats that only have room for your legs
and canoes are slightly bigger with room for a few more people?

My dh and I aregue about this - probably too much

And what about touque
I had a Canadian moment and told my kids to put their touque on...

blank stares all round!!

naw they were never touques in NS, always hats

think thats more of a Quebec thing!

hana I am from Alberta, so maybe it spread west and not east..?

sprogger -
yum! where are you from then?

Now that I think about it I think it's quite cute that I live in London by the Thames and my godparents live in London which is also on the Thames and we are only separated by an 8 hr flight.

I think they should have thought it through properly when they first started naming places. Canada is fairly big, so they should have given place names so that their relative distance to each other is proportional to the relative distance of the original places. It is disconcerting to find that Athens is in the county of Leeds for instance.

apropos of nothing really...I went to Barbados when I was younger and stayed in some cottages called Gloucestershire cottages. Hearing it pronounced glow-ses-ta-SHAAH in strong West Indian accents made me giggle at the time

barbados full of towns named after places in south coast Englang iirc - Worthing, Hastings, St Leonards etc.