Places which are things

[Eugo]

This could be fun. Let's compile a list of geographical names which are actually common names for things or materials, in any language. Rules: 1) no suffixes (as these would make a distinction between the two words, we want one word), 2) word is used as both a name and a thing in the same language (to exclude "the x-ese name of country Y means yardstick in z-ese").

Off the top of my head, to start the list:

in english
Java - coffee
China - porcelain

in hungarian
burgonya (Burgundy) - potato

Can't remember any of them in my own language, except those that break rule #1.

[eSOANEM]

in hungarian
burgonya (Burgundy) - potato

Burgundy's also a thing in English. A wine (named after the region) and a colour (named after the wine).

Anyway, lots of wines are named after the region they're from.

[jaap]

in hungarian
burgonya (Burgundy) - potato

Burgundy's also a thing in English. A wine (named after the region) and a colour (named after the wine).

Anyway, lots of wines are named after the region they're from.

Not to mention cheeses.

[Sizik]

Turkey - a bird
Georgia - a U.S. State
Georgia - a Caucasian country.

[eSOANEM]

Georgia - a U.S. State
Georgia - a Caucasian country.

These are both places.

I think what Eugo wanted were places which were non-place things.

[tesseraktik]

I was surprised to learn the word chad; an office supply term of arguable usefulness.


Oh, and I know you said none that are in the main language of the country it's in, but I've just got to mention:
Seal Chart in the County of Kent.
It belongs right up there with the penguin diagram.

[Mighty Jalapeno]

Dildo - A town in New Foundland.

[Derek]

I was surprised to learn the word chad; an office supply term of arguable usefulness.

If you were in the US in late 2000, you would be intimately familiar with that word >_<

[brenok]

In portuguese, Peru also means "turkey". It must be a common word for naming animals and countries...

[gmalivuk]

Oh, and I know you said none that are in the main language of the country it's in

No, he just wanted to exclude cases where a word for an object in one language happens to be the word for a place in a different language. That sort of thing would thus better belong in a different thread.

[Eugo]

No, he just wanted to exclude cases where a word for an object in one language happens to be the word for a place in a different language. That sort of thing would thus better belong in a different thread.

Exactly.

Just remembered one from my language:

Mali - small one

It's an adjective, but it usually implies a thing - a kid, most often.

[gmalivuk]

Sometimes it's also about a wolf, apparently, or at least it is in my surname.