"monachie"

[Laurence Horn]

George A. Thompson writes:
>[Monachie is said to be a Dutch word, and was explained to mean a
>fore rung of the cart, to which the lines were occasionally made
>fast, about three feet long, three inches by two and a half in
>thickness, at the bottom, and lessening almost to a point at the top,
>usually made of oak or hickory.]


What I first thought of was the town in Bergen County, New Jersey of
(or almost of) this name, but I have no idea for what or whom this
town was named.  (Monachie is near Woodbridge, NJ and the two towns
share some services.)  In any case, the official name of the town is
spelled MOONACHIE, although this doesn't stop a plethora of web sites
from deleting one of the O's (hard to tell which).  But then the
majority of web hits for "MONACHIE" accessible via google.com involve
a (non-rhotic) misspelling of the French word for monarchy.  I've
always found "Moonachie" quite evocative and poetic whenever I've
passed the highway exit for the town, just by Giants Stadium in the
Meadowlands.  Moonachie looks so much like it should refer to the
condition of indescribable languor and desolation from which we all
suffer on occasion (can I sing you a heartbreaking country ballad
about my moon-achie heart?), even though it's doubtless pronounced
differently.  It is possible, though, that "Monachie" was the
original form, whether or not the reference was to a cart rung.  At
least Northern New Jersey is within the right general area for a
place name of Dutch origin, unlike the following...

 From a web site about Mono (County and Lake), CA:
===========
The county is named after Mono Lake which, in 1852, was named for an
Indian tribe that inhabited the Sierra Nevada from north of Mono Lake
to Owens Lake. The tribe's western neighbors, the Yokuts, called them
monachie meaning "fly people" because the pupae of a fly was their
chief food staple and trading article.
===========

Yum.  Doesn't hardly seem to have much to do with George's clipping,
though, does it?

larry