What do the words marathon, paisley, and bikini have in common? They’re all words that derive from the names of places. Martha and Grant talk about these and other toponyms. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Toponyms”
You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
Recently, a friend of mine ran a marathon, and I was really proud of her, but it also got me to thinking.
Not about running a marathon myself.
God forbid you should run the marathon.
It got me thinking, Grant, of course, about toponyms.
Oh, oh, I think I know where you’re going.
Yeah, I bet you do. I’m going about 26.2 miles to the origin of the word marathon.
Right.
Which goes back to the story of the ancient Greeks defeating the Persians at the town of Marathon in ancient Greece.
And they dispatched a messenger to Athens to spread the good news, and he ran a long way to get there before announcing it.
And I was thinking about toponyms and the fact that the Greek word tapos means place, and that’s where we get the word for that kind of thing.
And then I started thinking, because you have to do something while you’re waiting for your friend to finish a marathon,
I started thinking about the fact that had she run that marathon in a paisley bikini,
We’d have even more top-of-the-nims to talk about.
Oh, very good, very good.
The brain is always working.
Always working.
Because paisley is the name of a town in Scotland.
Right, a textile center.
And then Bikini goes back to Bikini Atoll, that island in the Pacific.
When they did the nuclear test.
Right, in 1946.
And this was huge news, and this French guy designed this skimpy swimsuit and called it La Tombe, you know, the Atom.
But then one of his competitors made an even smaller swimsuit and called it the bikini.
And at the time, it wasn’t a big success, but later it became one.
And so, you know, when Baywatch comes on, that’s the kind of thing I think about.
Oh, toponyms.
Oh, toponyms. Very good.
Not those kinds of tops. No.
We’ll put a list of toponyms on the website.
A surprising number come from textiles and clothing.
Yes.
You can send us your favorite toponyms or make up some new ones.
Send them to words@waywordradio.org or give us a call, 877-929-9673.
