Is 'Des Moines' just some dirty joke? (fwd)

Mon Sep 15 10:41:44 UTC 2003

At 02:23 PM 2003-09-14, Phil CashCash forwarded:
>http://www.dmregister.com/news/stories/c4788998/22247528.html
>A linguist specializing in the extinct Miami-Illinois language says he's 
>come across a funny, 330-year-old story that gives "Des Moines" new meaning.

I wonder if non-Native Iowans will fall (or jump, or be pushed) into the 
same trap as some Natives have -- namely, histrionically conflating a 
word's nonapparent (and possibly spurious) etymology with its current 
meaning.  It would amuse me to see a Caucasian replay of the "squaw" daffiness.

Maybe we'll get even luckier and hear of some discovery like "nuuyôäksidi" 
being Ancient Hittite for "urinal".

--
Sean M. Burke    http://search.cpan.org/~sburke/