In The American Language, H.L. Mencken quotes Robert Louis Stevenson's paean to the American toponym: "There is no place in the world where nomenclature is so rich, poetical, humorous and picturesque as the United States […]".
Mencken goes on to list such curious examples as Chemquasabamticook, Jackass Flat, Big Chimney, Stumptown, Matrimony, Walla Walla and Cement. As the lexicographer of the American tongue, he may be forgiven for repeating Stevenson's claim. But the Scottish writer himself should have known better: surely, the greatest density of strange place names per square mile occurs in a small corner of his own country - two archipelagoes off Scotland's northern coast: the Orkney Islands and the Shetland Islands.
These two maps, both produced by Steve Goldman, show the place names in both groups of islands that he considers strange. "I've loved place names on Orkney and Shetland since I was a kid. They are by turns surreal, beautiful, nonsensical, rude, and bizarre… There seems to be no consistency to them at all", says Goldman. “I've done some online research to try to find their derivation, but there seems to be little out there".
Indeed, apart from Mr. Goldman's suggestion to recycle some toponyms as band names (Whirly would be a good indie band, Brethren could be a bearded folk quartet, and Twisting Nevi a dance act, etc), there seems to be little sense to be made from Orkney/Shetland place names, except to enjoy them as mellifluous bizarrery per se.
Naturally, when we stopped laughing, we couldn't resist testing Mr. Goldman's hypothesis, and tried herding these toponyms into a few vaguely circumscribed categories.
As one might expect on a collection of wind-blasted islands lost in the dark, chilly north, a lot of toponyms reflect a fair measure of doom and gloom. There's a Mount Misery, and Muckle Hell. There's Poverty and Grimness and Rumblings. There's a Gutterpool, a Rotten Gutter, a Grotsetter and a Gorehouse. And - of course - a Doomy.
Perhaps this is why the locals liked to imagine themselves elsewhere. In Ireland, Holland or Virginia. There's also a Canada West, and a Balaclava. Even more exotic, are two names of places that must seem rather hospitable from there: Gaza and Moon. One coastal place is called, quite specifically, Mid Dublin.
A remarkable number of places have monosyllabic names. It's as if we've stumbled on the Lascaux Cave of toponymy. We witness how people practised their name-giving skills, learning to vocalise before they could improvise. You can almost hear them scraping their throats as they point to specific locations, baptising them Woo, Too, Bu, Ha, How and Pow. A second set of monosyllabic place names is already more complex, self-aware. The key one is Yell, summarising what went before. A few seem bent on defining primary places, Ur-locations: Fleck, Nest, Junk, Loot, Grid, Gear, Wart. But what about Snap, or Sung? Maybe these are a third, even more evolved set of monosyllabics, one-word poems that transcend the places they denote.
Quite a few places continue with poetic, even grandiose names. There's Papa, and Lady. Pretty and Standpretty. Surreally, there's a (fixed) location called The Trip. How about one called Freedom? Sounds nice. But there's also Gravity, Littleness, Farewell, and a Fitful Head.
Poetry takes a surreal turn in a set of place names that sound like ritual incantations. Some even sound like the Indian place names that form such a substantial part of the melting pot that is Mencken's American topography: Queefiglamo, Quoynalonga Ness and the improbably-named trio Quackquoy, Suckquoy and Quoydandy. Some sound more like the many names of Aboriginal origin on the map of Australia: Willa Minga Honga, Birries Houlla Komba, Kellyan Hellyan, Yeldadee and Choldertoo. Others sound like nothing else but gibberish and gobbledygook - those terms would indeed not be out of place in this set: Hyndgreenie, Insabysetter, Keenabonus, Fografiddle, Helliglobo, Drongi Taing, Loomi Shun and Da Scrodurdins.
Somehow, that last location sounds like it provides a good segway to the significant number of locations with rude or lewd connotations. Were those early Orkneyans and Shetlanders a cheeky bunch? Quite probably, the original meaning has nothing to do with the present, suggestive reading: Moan, Queenamoan and Twatt; Hendry's Holes, Ladies Hole and Mirky Hole; The Rump, Howan Lickan and Longa Tonga; The Lash, Flae-Ass and Cumminess; Peerie Breast and Drooping Point. But then again: what else to do on those long winter nights?
Perhaps the best proof that those islanders are having us on, is a collection of 'X of Y' names. Where X and Y should be replaced by intelligible locator words, as in 'Bay of Bengal', or 'Mouth of the Nile'. Now, Scots toponyms can be a bit puzzling - anyone know what a Mull of Kintyre is? Or a Firth of Forth? (No, it's nothing to do with Colin Firth). But they're taking things to extremes on the Orkneys and Shetlands. What in God's name are Lurns of the Sound? The Ebb of the Riv? The Gump of Spurness? (The Scottish clan ancestors of Forrest Gump?)
Somehow, the Banks of Runabout sounds vaguely like a critique of the financial sector. And the White Stane of Willies might as well have been mentioned in the lewd paragraph. The Taing of the Busy? That's that faint ringing noise that gets inside your head when you've been up for 24 hours straight. Also known as the Head of Work. The Knowes of Euro? The Candle of Sneuk? The Riff of Wasbister? We sort of know what half the name means. But how frustrating to have not even the glimmer of a clue about the Neven o' Grinni, the Sinians of Cutclaws, the Glifters of Lyrawa, or the Quilse of Hoganeap.
If some place names sound like great band names, others could be fantastic stage monikers: Heeeere's Ernie Tooin! And there are Tommy Tiffy and Sandi Sand! Again, Mavis Grind could have made a first appearance three paragraphs up. But who could resist the child-friendly matinee filled out by such glittering names as Genie Fea, Elvis Voe, Funzie Girt, Grunka Hellier and Urie Lingey?
If your tastes in entertainment are more attuned to the joys of rap, then this outpost of Scotland has a few remarkable surprises for you. Notably Da Niggards, Busta Little and, improbably, Tongue of Gangsta.
We could go on. You'll find many more names on the maps. And if you, like us, are the kind of person that remains in their seat until the movie credits have rolled past, just to catch a few fantastic names among the hundreds scrolling by, you'll have lots of fun finding Dull Flag, the Hill of Area, Hulk Waters and Gentleman's Ha.
If the local tourist boards have any sense, they'll put up signs at all of these places, and brace for the throngs of tourists rushing north to get their picture taken next to the ones that say Many Crooks, Flossy Groups and Hoo Kame. And many more...
Many thanks to Steve Goldman for sending in these maps, which can be found here and here on his website Mapfodder, which contains some more interesting cartographic paraphernalia.
Strange Maps #608
Got a strange map? Let me know at strangemaps@gmail.com.
Ash deposits of some of North America's largest volcanic eruptions.
The end of the world as we know it
Panoramic view of Yellowstone National Park
Image: Heinrich Berann for the National Park Service – public domain
Of the many freak ways to shuffle off this mortal coil – lightning strikes, shark bites, falling pianos – here's one you can safely scratch off your worry list: an outbreak of the Yellowstone supervolcano.
As the map below shows, previous eruptions at Yellowstone were so massive that the ash fall covered most of what is now the western United States. A similar event today would not only claim countless lives directly, but also create enough subsidiary disruption to kill off global civilisation as we know it. A relatively recent eruption of the Toba supervolcano in Indonesia may have come close to killing off the human species (see further below).
However, just because a scenario is grim does not mean that it is likely (insert topical political joke here). In this case, the doom mongers claiming an eruption is 'overdue' are wrong. Yellowstone is not a library book or an oil change. Just because the previous mega-eruption happened long ago doesn't mean the next one is imminent.
Ash beds of North America
Ash beds deposited by major volcanic eruptions in North America.
Image: USGS – public domain
This map shows the location of the Yellowstone plateau and the ash beds deposited by its three most recent major outbreaks, plus two other eruptions – one similarly massive, the other the most recent one in North America.
Huckleberry Ridge
The Huckleberry Ridge eruption occurred 2.1 million years ago. It ejected 2,450 km3 (588 cubic miles) of material, making it the largest known eruption in Yellowstone's history and in fact the largest eruption in North America in the past few million years.
This is the oldest of the three most recent caldera-forming eruptions of the Yellowstone hotspot. It created the Island Park Caldera, which lies partially in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming and westward into Idaho. Ash from this eruption covered an area from southern California to North Dakota, and southern Idaho to northern Texas.
Mesa Falls
About 1.3 million years ago, the Mesa Falls eruption ejected 280 km3 (67 cubic miles) of material and created the Henry's Fork Caldera, located in Idaho, west of Yellowstone.
It was the smallest of the three major Yellowstone eruptions, both in terms of material ejected and area covered: 'only' most of present-day Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas and Nebraska, and about half of South Dakota.
Lava Creek
The Lava Creek eruption was the most recent major eruption of Yellowstone: about 640,000 years ago. It was the second-largest eruption in North America in the past few million years, creating the Yellowstone Caldera.
It ejected only about 1,000 km3 (240 cubic miles) of material, i.e. less than half of the Huckleberry Ridge eruption. However, its debris is spread out over a significantly wider area: basically, Huckleberry Ridge plus larger slices of both Canada and Mexico, plus most of Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Missouri.
Long Valley
This eruption occurred about 760,000 years ago. It was centered on southern California, where it created the Long Valley Caldera, and spewed out 580 km3 (139 cubic miles) of material. This makes it North America's third-largest eruption of the past few million years.
The material ejected by this eruption is known as the Bishop ash bed, and covers the central and western parts of the Lava Creek ash bed.
Mount St Helens
The eruption of Mount St Helens in 1980 was the deadliest and most destructive volcanic event in U.S. history: it created a mile-wide crater, killed 57 people and created economic damage in the neighborhood of $1 billion.
Yet by Yellowstone standards, it was tiny: Mount St Helens only ejected 0.25 km3 (0.06 cubic miles) of material, most of the ash settling in a relatively narrow band across Washington State and Idaho. By comparison, the Lava Creek eruption left a large swathe of North America in up to two metres of debris.
The difference between quakes and faults
The volume of dense rock equivalent (DRE) ejected by the Huckleberry Ridge event dwarfs all other North American eruptions. It is itself overshadowed by the DRE ejected at the most recent eruption at Toba (present-day Indonesia). This was one of the largest known eruptions ever and a relatively recent one: only 75,000 years ago. It is thought to have caused a global volcanic winter which lasted up to a decade and may be responsible for the bottleneck in human evolution: around that time, the total human population suddenly and drastically plummeted to between 1,000 and 10,000 breeding pairs.
Image: USGS – public domain
So, what are the chances of something that massive happening anytime soon? The aforementioned mongers of doom often claim that major eruptions occur at intervals of 600,000 years and point out that the last one was 640,000 years ago. Except that (a) the first interval was about 200,000 years longer, (b) two intervals is not a lot to base a prediction on, and (c) those intervals don't really mean anything anyway. Not in the case of volcanic eruptions, at least.
Earthquakes can be 'overdue' because the stress on fault lines is built up consistently over long periods, which means quakes can be predicted with a relative degree of accuracy. But this is not how volcanoes behave. They do not accumulate magma at constant rates. And the subterranean pressure that causes the magma to erupt does not follow a schedule.
What's more, previous super-eruptions do not necessarily imply future ones. Scientists are not convinced that there ever will be another big eruption at Yellowstone. Smaller eruptions, however, are much likelier. Since the Lava Creek eruption, there have been about 30 smaller outbreaks at Yellowstone, the last lava flow being about 70,000 years ago.
As for the immediate future (give or take a century): the magma chamber beneath Yellowstone is only 5 percent to 15 percent molten. Most scientists agree that is as un-alarming as it sounds. And that its statistically more relevant to worry about death by lightning, shark, or piano.
Strange Maps #1041
Got a strange map? Let me know at strangemaps@gmail.com.
Stoicism can help overcome anxiety
Are you a worrier? Do you imagine nightmare scenarios and then get worked up and anxious about them? Does your mind get caught in a horrible spiral of catastrophizing over even the smallest of things? Worrying, particularly imagining the worst case scenario, seems to be a natural part of being human and comes easily to a lot of us. It's awful, perhaps even dangerous, when we do it.
But, there might just be an ancient wisdom that can help. It involves reframing this attitude for the better, and it comes from Stoicism. It's called "premeditation," and it could be the most useful trick we can learn.
Practical Stoicism
Broadly speaking, Stoicism is the philosophy of choosing your judgments. Stoics believe that there is nothing about the universe that can be called good or bad, valuable or valueless, in itself. It's we who add these values to things. As Shakespeare's Hamlet says, "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." Our minds color the things we encounter as being "good" or "bad," and given that we control our minds, we therefore have control over all of our negative feelings.
Put another way, Stoicism maintains that there's a gap between our experience of an event and our judgment of it. For instance, if someone calls you a smelly goat, you have an opportunity, however small and hard it might be, to pause and ask yourself, "How will I judge this?" What's more, you can even ask, "How will I respond?" We have power over which thoughts we entertain and the final say on our actions. Today, Stoicism has influenced and finds modern expression in the hugely effective "cognitive behavioral therapy."
One of the principal fathers of ancient Stoicism was the Roman statesmen, Seneca, who argued that the unexpected and unforeseen blows of life are the hardest to take control over. The shock of a misfortune can strip away the power we have to choose our reaction. For instance, being burglarized feels so horrible because we had felt so safe at home. A stomach ache, out of the blue, is harder than a stitch thirty minutes into a run. A sudden bang makes us jump, but a firework makes us smile. Fell swoops hurt more than known hardships.
What could possibly go wrong?
So, how can we resolve this? Seneca suggests a Stoic technique called "premeditatio malorum" or "premeditation." At the start of every day, we ought to take time to indulge our anxious and catastrophizing mind. We should "rehearse in the mind: exile, torture, war, shipwreck." We should meditate on the worst things that could happen: your partner will leave you, your boss will fire you, your house will burn down. Maybe, even, you'll die.
This might sound depressing, but the important thing is that we do not stop there.
Stoicism has influenced and finds modern expression in the hugely effective "cognitive behavioral therapy."
The Stoic also rehearses how they will react to these things as they come up. For instance, another Stoic (and Roman Emperor) Marcus Aurelius asks us to imagine all the mean, rude, selfish, and boorish people we'll come across today. Then, in our heads, we script how we'll respond when we meet them. We can shrug off their meanness, smile at their rudeness, and refuse to be "implicated in what is degrading." Thus prepared, we take control again of our reactions and behavior.
The Stoics cast themselves into the darkest and most desperate of conditions but then realize that they can and will endure. With premeditation, the Stoic is prepared and has the mental vigor necessary to take the blow on the chin and say, "Yep, l can deal with this."
Catastrophizing as a method of mental inoculation
Seneca wrote: "In times of peace, the soldier carries out maneuvers." This is also true of premeditation, which acts as the war room or training ground. The agonizing cut of the unexpected is blunted by preparedness. We can prepare the mind for whatever trials may come, in just the same way we can prepare the body for some endurance activity. The world can throw nothing as bad as that which our minds have already imagined.
Stoicism teaches us to embrace our worrying mind but to embrace it as a kind of inoculation. With a frown over breakfast, try to spend five minutes of your day deliberately catastrophizing. Get your anti-anxiety battle plan ready and then face the world.
Jonny Thomson teaches philosophy in Oxford. He runs a popular Instagram account called Mini Philosophy (@philosophyminis). His first book is Mini Philosophy: A Small Book of Big Ideas.
