Kamal Ghorui
Geographic names can be serious in nature regarding boundaries and culture, but can also be a source of comedic relief. From Antarctica to Turkey, places often use names that provide adventure seekers with photographic opportunities and historians with opportunities to explain. Names may provide humour in English, but each possesses its own history, language or accidental derivation- the history of the people who settled there. Names may arise from an attempted marketing scheme of the 19th century, or be a result of mistranslation from ancient dialects or be the result of an ‘accidental’ colonial society.The following destinations demonstrate that the reality is stranger than the fiction on every occasion, and often funnier; herein exists a world where, from the icy peaks of the Executive Committee Range in Antarctica to the coastal reaches of Useless Harbour in Australia.
