Oops...I mean the Battle of Menotomy...not to be confused with metonymy, similar to synedoche which is NOT a city in NY.
Menotomy is the former name of Arlington, which changed its name after the Civil war to honor the dead in the Arlington, VA cemetery. Now some are considering changing it back to capitalize on those Revolutionary War tourist dollars that nearby Concord and Lexington get. After all, it is just as old and cute. It was on Paul Revere's path, he did not even make it all the way to Concord. And more people died in the Battle of Menotomy than in the ones in Concord and Lexington combined.
The problem would be that no one has ever heard of the Battle of Menotomy (other problems would include the confusion with monotony and metonymy). For instance, back home in Michigan we live in the subdivision of Revolutionary Battle Names. Although we have a Bunker Hill, Trenton, Lexington, we have no Menotomy Street. Not that we don't have monotony itself. Oh, also we have Antietam and Gettysburg Drs. Maybe those platting out our subdivision on top of an old dairy farm 45 years ago thought those were in the Revolutionary War too or maybe they just ran out of Revolutionary Battle names and thought they could just sneak those in. Who would know? We didn't have Wikipedia then. Well I knew all about the Battle of Antietam. I was assigned to make an oral report on it way back when. I spent the entire time mispronouncing it
Menotomy is the former name of Arlington, which changed its name after the Civil war to honor the dead in the Arlington, VA cemetery. Now some are considering changing it back to capitalize on those Revolutionary War tourist dollars that nearby Concord and Lexington get. After all, it is just as old and cute. It was on Paul Revere's path, he did not even make it all the way to Concord. And more people died in the Battle of Menotomy than in the ones in Concord and Lexington combined.
The problem would be that no one has ever heard of the Battle of Menotomy (other problems would include the confusion with monotony and metonymy). For instance, back home in Michigan we live in the subdivision of Revolutionary Battle Names. Although we have a Bunker Hill, Trenton, Lexington, we have no Menotomy Street. Not that we don't have monotony itself. Oh, also we have Antietam and Gettysburg Drs. Maybe those platting out our subdivision on top of an old dairy farm 45 years ago thought those were in the Revolutionary War too or maybe they just ran out of Revolutionary Battle names and thought they could just sneak those in. Who would know? We didn't have Wikipedia then. Well I knew all about the Battle of Antietam. I was assigned to make an oral report on it way back when. I spent the entire time mispronouncing it
No comments:
Post a Comment