What Gender is Your Country?

Oct 26, 2014 by

What Gender is Your Country?

[This post was originally published in November 2013] I am often asked by my students why countries receive masculine or feminine names in languages that make a grammatical gender distinction. For example, why is Portugal masculine...

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Anachronistic Toponyms and Name Changes: Where Am I From?

Oct 26, 2014 by

Anachronistic Toponyms and Name Changes: Where Am I From?

[This post was originally published in April 2012] Some time ago I attended a lovely concert at San Francisco’s Davies Hall, with San Francisco Symphony Orchestra conducted by the brilliant Itzhak Perlman. The program brochure...

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Ukraine’s Former President Yanukovich’s GeoGaffes

Oct 26, 2014 by

Ukraine’s Former President Yanukovich’s GeoGaffes

[This post was originally published in April 2012] My previous post mentioned several egregious geographical errors made by various U.S. politicians. But such illiteracy and confusion are not limited to American officials. Another...

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Geographical Illiteracy and the Confusing Islands of the Southern Hemi...

Oct 26, 2014 by

Geographical Illiteracy and the Confusing Islands of the Southern Hemisphere

[This post was originally published in April 2012] One of my goals is to combat geographical illiteracy and one way to do it is by pointing out egregious errors made by politicians and other prominent individuals. A recent case in...

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Reading the Map of Scotland

Oct 26, 2014 by

Reading the Map of Scotland

[This post was originally posted in April 2012] Several recent posts examined toponyms and what we can learn from them. Reading place names on a map can also reveal who used to inhabit the land in earlier times. Take, for example,...

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What is a city?

Oct 26, 2014 by

What is a city?

[This post, originally published in April 2012, examimes the etymologies of the words for ‘city’ and ‘town’ — Many thanks to Vitaliy Rayz for excellent photography] The etymologies of the words for...

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