There is a poetry to names of place; it strikes us from time to time. The components that make a particular place name memorable are not susceptible to exact definition, but that Jeanne sequoia cannot be denied. A heady mix of verbal rhythm, encrusted cultural perception, and the unfathomability of linguistic connotation imparts a magic to these names.
"Jalalabad," we call the second city of Afghanistan, and we can recognize this peculiar charm. The famed archaeological sites of the ancient Near East provide many examples of names which whet our interest by their curious inflections alone. Is it to be conceived that one could hear of Tell Asmar, Tepe Yahya, Bisitun, Lagash, or Pasargadae, of rivers like the Greater and Lesser Zab without a frisson of delight? A city with such a name as Petra (as Frank Muir said recently, "Arose, red, seedy; have Isolde's tum") must conjure up innumerable layers of historical, religious, and literary association. I will as a matter of course pass over the Central Asian caravan towns; there can be no one whose mind does not reel with the scent of moldering tapestries, camel musk, and strong opiates upon hearing of Khiva, Bokhara, or Samarqand.
In the grand old days when Robert Menzies was Australia's prime minister, a ditty was sung in many a tavern of Perth (in the same state, Western Australia, that gave us sites dubbed Jiggalong, Soakage Well, Lady Edith Lagoon, and Lake Waukarlycarly) which ran,
When in cahoots with fortune and Menzies,
I all at once becheap my outback state ...
The general fatalism of the Australians outside the East Coast that these lines imply is well reflected in place names. These go from the purely terrifying, such as Mount Destruction and Mount Unapproachable in the very heart of the continent, to the merely sinister: Avoid Bay, Anxious Bay, Disaster Bay, Shark Bay. Then there are the autonomous monastic lands of the Greek Orthodox Church, the sanctuaries of which provide lush pickings for the lover of place names: particularly Panteleimou and Chilandar. The strength of historical association is brought home by places like Saffron Walden in Essex, or Skellig Michael on the Irish coast, but dozens more could be cited.
It is an unaccountable mystery why some regions should have been so far blessed with rich and appealing place names, while the surrounding areas are in that respect impoverished. A good example is the northeast of England, Andy Capp's stomping ground. Here in the Tyne-Tees area such curious Anglo--Norman combinations survive as Houghton le Spring and Dalton le Dale, names curiously suggestive of Merry Men.
Nor is it clear why Tunisia should have been so well favored with names of a beautifully sinuous and flexible nature, viz., Sfax, Kasserine, La Goulette, Zarzis, etc. while neighboring Algeria should be so barren (with the exception of Sidi Bel Abbes). It is equally a curious observation, but one scarcely open to dispute, that both place names themselves and the histories of those names become more and more mundane as one moves closer and closer to the present. In fact, within the young nations of the Western hemisphere there are remarkably few examples which strike the fancy. The exceptions, not surprisingly, are those names of native American derivation. The Massachusetts lake known as Charcoggagogg-manchaugagogchabunagungamaugg, which has become rather famous of late, is one; the Argentinean lake Colhue Huapi is another.
And the poetic implications of place names are sensitive to the slightest modification, as is clear if we consider Miss Parker's "Comment":
"Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea,
And love is a thing that can never go wrong,
And I am Marie of Roumania."
We should note how vital the slightly archaic orthography of the place name is to the comic effect of the poem. Surely she used this spelling because a single vowel is simply incapable of looking as funny.
In so peripatetic a society as the United States, it cannot but do us good to step back frequently and appreciate the poetic effects, comic, Romantic, and dramatic, of place names. Thereby we gain a simple enjoyment of those settlements and landmarks through which we are forced to move, at so dizzying a pace.
