(“Sahara” is Arabic for “desert”. “Gobi” is Mongolian for “desert”, and “Kalahari” is Tswana for “desert”)
— foone🏳️⚧️ (@Foone) July 19, 2018
I know a guy from the Gambia, which is a small country surrounded on three sides by Senegal. The Gambia consists of both sides of the Gambia River down to the Atlantic Ocean. I asked him what “Gambia” means. He said, “River.” I couldn’t help but laugh. @Foone once mused about these confounding names that just happen when translated into other languages as they would apply to a potential universal translator, the kind they use in the Star Trek Universe. Aliens would think us mad.
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“Here we are in Chad, looking upon the mighty Lake Chad!”
“Ahh yes, the land of Lake, bordering the Lake Lake. Another fine human name. “— foone🏳️⚧️ (@Foone) July 19, 2018
Thankfully, Bredon Hill in Worcestershire is actually a hill, since it’d be just silly to name anything other than a hill “Hill Hill Hill”. pic.twitter.com/6qX8ppAutt
— foone🏳️⚧️ (@Foone) July 19, 2018
These are called tautological place names, and Wikipedia has a list of them. It’s not exhaustive, because the Gambia is not included. There’s a lot more to the discussion in the Twitter thread, much of it laugh-inducing. -via Geeks Are Sexy
Source: neatorama