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How come we say Lake Michigan and not the Ocean Pacific or River Chicago? (lemmy.world)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world
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[–] 12 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (1 child)

This is complete speculation, but I wonder if the less common inverted title (eg Lake Michigan, River Thames, etc) comes from English's French influence. In French they usually invert the title in this way. For example, what we call the Eiffel Tower, they call the Tour Eiffel.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    I just looked it up, so the French use tour for traveling from place to place and a tall thin tower? I obviously don't know French, I wonder if it's from touring (as in travel) small thin buildings.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    I did some digging and the two words have different etymologies. So it's a coincidence. English has many words that share the same spelling but have different meanings/etymologies as well. "Fan" for example. For "tour", the "tower" usage comes from the Latin "turrem" which also means "tower", and the "tour" usage comes from the Latin "tournāre" which means "to turn".

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