Redundancy--(in defense of "South Yugoslavia")

[Bob Fitzke]

Mr. Mac:

I have an old friend from Bellows Falls. On the off chance you may know her
I'm writing to ask for her address. Her name is now Shirley Minarchan. She
was originally Shirley Grey. Her hometown is BF but I knew her and her late
husband when they lived in Lansing, MI.

Thanks

Bob Fitzke
You do not reason a man out of something he was not reasoned into ---
Jonathon Swift
People are entitled to their own opinions but not their own facts---Sen. Dan
Moynihan
An atheist is a person with no invisible means of support---John Buchan
----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael McKernan" <mckernan at LOCALNET.COM>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, November 14, 2004 8:14 PM
Subject: Re: Redundancy--(in defense of "South Yugoslavia")


> Someone wrote:
>
>>>>    I'd like to speak out in defense of "South Yugoslavia." Sure,
>>>>"Yug-" in Slavic means "South," but once the country Yugoslavia arose,
>>>>one could be in the north, south, east, or west of that country.
>
> I live in a place known as 'Westminster West, Vermont.'  This cumbersome
> place name denotes the west parish (or west village) of the Town of
> Westminster, VT, a  town along the Connecticut River, in Windham CO
> (southeastern VT).
>
> Some 19th century sources refer to this place as 'West Westminster,' and
> some (recently arrived) residents nowadays say 'West West.'  Most of the
> population of the Town of Westminster (3,210 in 2000 census) live in the
> central village, 'Westminster', which has the Town Hall, Post Office,
> central school, etc.).  Another Town of Westminster population center is
> 'North Westminster', which geographically and socially is connected more
> closely to the community/village of Bellows Falls, VT (which is a
> population center within the Town of Rockingham, VT).
>
> There is some audible tension between old-timers and newcomers, based on
> pronunciation of 'Westminster,' since the old-timers invariably pronounce
> an additional vowel sound, something like Wes-min-iss-tuh', while recent
> arrivals tend to pronounce 'as spelled': West'-min-ster (or
> West-min'-ster).  (This holds true for Westminster West and North
> Westminster, as well.)
>
> FAIR WARNING: increasingly extraneous comments follow.  Please feel free
> to
> trash this without reading it!
>
> Of course, the original choice of name for Westminster town(ship) was not
> based on it being the site of a western church building, but merely an
> importation of a long-established place name from England.  But when a
> clear geographic and demographic distinction developed between the western
> part of this town, which consists of high, hilly terrain, separated by a
> very steep ridge line from the  bottom-lands of the main riverside
> community, and with this western area's population somewhat centered on
> its
> own parish Congregational church, the Westminster West (or West
> Westminster) label was chosen, despite its high degre of audible
> redundancy.  One might wonder why the west didn't develop an independent
> place name.
>
> (The adjacent Town of Rockingham, VT, (total population 5,309), mentioned
> above, includes the villages of Bellows Falls, VT (population 3,165),
> Saxtons River (519), and a smaller population center simply called
> Rockingham (no census data available).  These three communities could
> reasonably have been named 'East Rockingham' (Bellows Falls); 'West
> Rockingham (Saxtons River); and North Rockingham (Rockingham).  Instead,
> with Bellows Falls taking its name from a falls or rapids of the
> Connecticut River, and Saxtons River taking its name from a river (which
> joins the Connecticut just south of Bellows Falls), the awkwardness of
> East/West/North compound forms was avoided.
>
> Westminster did develop an alternative name for its 'North Westminster'
> community: 'Gageville,' which was named for a small mill/manufacturing
> area
> along the Saxtons River, (but in the Town of Westminster).  The official
> name, however,is North Westminster, used for such institutions as  water
> and sewer systems, and a fire district.
>
> Complicating all of this, for Westminster West residents, the US Postal
> Service delivers mail to this part of town through the Putney, VT (town
> immediately south of Westminster) Post Office, rather than through the
> Westminster Post Office, so Westminster West uses the Putney zip code
> (05346) rather than Westminster's (05158)  Many pieces of mail are
> misdirected due to this, and package delivery services such as UPS or
> FEDEX
> are often confused (or pretend to be) by the 05346 zip code coexisting in
> Putney, Westminster West (and also Dummerston, VT).  Not only that, but
> Westminster West telephones use the 'Putney' prefix (387-XXXX) rather than
> the Westminster prefix.  Until deregulation, the phone company actually
> charged toll rates for calls from Westminster West to Westminster (or
> North
> Westminster), and vice versa.
>
> Further complicating all of this, for some people, is the location of the
> regional high school, (officially, Windham [County] Northeast Supervisory
> Union High School] which brings together students from Rockingham,
> Westminster, and the several other towns in this northeast quadrant of the
> county.  This school is physically located in the Town of Westminster
> (closer to North Westminster than to the main village, Westminster), but
> it
> is generally referred to as 'Bellows Falls High School', (i.e., its sports
> teams and other groups are known as the 'Bellows Falls Terriers', etc.)
> This is because Bellows Falls (and its immediate neighbor, North
> Westminster) constitute a locally-significant urbanized area, with stores,
> banks, and a broad range of services (and employment opportunities)
> compared to the surrounding villages which lack most or all of such
> facilities.  While Bellows Falls is, by U.S.A. standards, a small village,
> it locally functions as the central 'town' of the area, somewhat in
> conjuction with North Walpole, New Hampshire, which is just across the
> Connecticut River.  (But I won't go THERE, this is far enough!)
>
> Michael McKernan, Ph.D.