Tell Me Your Most Beautiful Words

TheLoadedDog · Dec 18, 2017

Brennabean said:
America. Not a huge fan of the country, but as a girls name it's just pleasing to hear and roll off the tongue. Same with India actually.

I love the old names of countries, cities, etc, myself. Ceylon is so much more beatuiful than Sri Lanka. Cathay is better than China. I reckon Constantinople beats Istanbul by a mile. Peking not Beijing, Bombay over Mumbai (seriously, can you imagine Dr Mumbai in "Bewitched" - those of you old enough)? Zimbabwe is a cool modern name, but I also like Rhodesia. And Russia is ok, but UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS just rocks - this one isn't pretty, but it just kicks bottom. I know some of these are political, and I have reasons as to why we should use the Anglicised names of cities etc rather than the modern ones, but this thread is just about nice sounding names.

Now to my own my own country. My home town of Sydney has an awful name. I mean, I'm fond of it, and if I hear the word overseas, I might feel a slight twang, but it's not a great name for a city. Calling a city Sydney or Sidney (Ohio) is like calling it after your local fruit vendor or something. May as well name it Bob. On second thoughts, Bob could be cool. There are not many guys called Sidney now, but still. And Melbourne! Well, Melbourne is a functional enough name*, but not when you realise something that was lost to history. An opportunity most outside Australia wouldn't know, and many inside it don't either. Excuse the caps, but IT WAS NEARLY CALLED BATMANIA! How great would that have been? You can verify this on Google.

Except nobody from America can pronounce it.

constant stranger · Dec 18, 2017

Alice Springs is a pretty cool name for a town.

Brennabean · Dec 18, 2017

My name is actually a name of a town in Wales but originates from further in the past. I like Rhodesia, too.
Australians make the strangest names for things to the point that it's funny.
"sitting on this mountain is making me miserable" "well we should name it Mount miserable then"
"we're going round in circles in this retched place" "we should call it Useless Loop then"
Nowhere Else Road
Foul Bay
Come By Chance
Eggs and Bacon Bay
Break-Me-Neck Hill
Coffin Bay
Lovely Bottom
Yorkeys Knob

Going to Australia is just the most amusing thing.

TheLoadedDog · Dec 18, 2017

You know what you've just done? You have just unleashed an Australian postal worker who once learned several thousand placenames by rote.

'
Your list is fantastic. Let me also give you some off the top of my head, in no particular order:

OBX Creek Not a typo, not Box Creek. OBX. All capitals)
Hen and Chicken Bay
Bottle and Glass Rocks
High Camp (I mean I know we are a global gay centre, but... )
Pleurisy Plains
Balls Head (sorry)
The knob
The Nut
1770 (town name, not a postcode)
Vale of Ah
Woolloomooloo
Tom Ugly's Point
Humpty Doo
Cape Disappointment
Rum Jungle
Hay
Sow and Pigs Rocks
Burrumbuttock

I'm getting a mental block now, but there are heaps of these things online. We have lots of Knobs (no laughing, you lot in the cheap seats).

Let me give you my very favourite though. This is not a town or a suburb, but a municipal facility. Some background is needed. This is front of mind, because the fiftieth anniversary of a famous event occurred several days ago. In the 1960s, our Prime Minister slipped out of his waterfront home in Melbourne, eluded his bodyguards, and went swimming in rough seas. He was a strong swimmer, but he disappeared in the surf, and was never seen again. His name was Harold Holt. A short time later, in Melbourne, a local council proudly opened the HAROLD HOLT SWIMMING CENTRE. True story. You can Google this.

I forgot Curly **** Road.