LL-L: "Names" LOWLANDS-L, 21.DEC.1999 (01) [E]

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From: john feather <johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk>
Subject: Names

Jason

An old name for the North Sea is "German Ocean". It is still recorded in
Chambers Dictionary, with no indication that it was intended to be humorous.

On a linguistic point, we tend to use "strait" in the plural, at least in
speech - Straits of Dover, Straits of Gibraltar - though my old Philip's
University Atlas has the singular form. The French call the Strait(s) of
Dover the Pas de Calais (not to be confused with the adjacent Département of
Pas-de-Calais).

The area of the North Sea around which the Frisian Islands lie used to be
called "Heligoland" in the shipping (weather) forecast. I suppose this goes
back to the time when the island of Helgoland was a British possession. (Did
this have any other linguistic consequences?) Now the sea area is called
"German Bight". My Langenscheidt's Encyclopaedic Dictionary contains both
"Deutsche Bucht" and "Helgoländer Bucht" but doesn't say they are the same
thing.

John
johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk


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