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Fucking, Austria changes name to Fugging

theguardian.com

221–230 of 261 posts

Re: Fucking, Austria changes name to Fugging

#221

Finland has a lot of intentionally rude place names, especially in the north. Places like "cunt pond" ("vittulampi"), "cockpile" ("kullirova"), "cuntwhistle bog" ("vitunviheltämänjänkä") etc. As to why this is, I've heard a number of theories. One is that people used to be less prudish and this kind of talk was much more commonplace back in the day. Also that the culture up north is more conducive to crude language.…

Similar with "Grope Cunt Lane" in England https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gropecunt_Lane

There are some good place names too, like "Shitterton", "Cockermouth", and "Bell End". Only Shitterton is intentional, though. It does literally mean "town near the place where you have a poo"

Re: Fucking, Austria changes name to Fugging

#222
post #211

"They finally grew weary of Fucking, its current name, which some experts say dates back to the 11th century." "Some have reportedly even stolen the signposts, leading the local authorities to use theft-resistant concrete when putting up replacements." It's sad and a disgrace that a town has to rename itself after a thousand years, because people whose intellectual capacity is questionable won't stop with the abuse.…

This signpost stealing seems to be a common thing. I know of a town in France called Condom which also suffered this fate a lot.

Re: Fucking, Austria changes name to Fugging

#223

"Don’t people have any sense of humour these days?” asked one OOeN reader. Another noted: “They’re getting free publicity – they ought to have been happy to have a funny name." Free publicity that leads to sign posts being stolen. For a tiny village of 100 people, this is likely a serious hardship. If it isn't bringing in more money than it's costing them, it's an attractive nuisance , not free publicity.

They could make millions from fucking tourists

They probably didn't, otherwise they would've not done it. They had hundreds of years of data to base that decision on.

Re: Fucking, Austria changes name to Fugging

#226

Similar story: "World Taekwondo, called the World Taekwondo Federation until June 2017, is the international federation governing the sport of taekwondo and is a member of the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations (ASOIF).[2] The body was renamed in June 2017 to avoid the "negative connotations" of the previously used initials WTF." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Taekwondo

Also in Sweden the university hospital of Karolinska Institute had to drop the domain kus.se and go with karolinska.se as they got too many visitors from other countries. In Danish and other languages kusse means vagina. https://www.svd.se/karolinska-overger-dyrkopt-webbadress (in Swedish) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karolinska_Institute

Re: Fucking, Austria changes name to Fugging

#227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spoken like a true entrepreneur. But you know, there are people out there, in small villages that have quiet lives that nobody ever hears about and they are perfectly happy. I'm really amazed at all the "We can monetize this" and "It's free publicity" statements here. How about admiring these people for their wish to maintain tranquility in the village the know and love? Edit: quite - quiet

The second part of my comment was in the same spirit as well - how about we admire this peculiar linguistic artifact, embrace and enjoy it rather than optimize everything like robots. Europe especially is completely bent over preserving old cultural architecture and artifacts - what's wrong with wanting to preserve _new_ architecture and artifacts?

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Re: Fucking, Austria changes name to Fugging

#228
post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could make millions from fucking tourists

They probably didn't, otherwise they would've not done it. They had hundreds of years of data to base that decision on.

More likely, only 20 years.

Re: Fucking, Austria changes name to Fugging

#229
post #211

"They finally grew weary of Fucking, its current name, which some experts say dates back to the 11th century." "Some have reportedly even stolen the signposts, leading the local authorities to use theft-resistant concrete when putting up replacements." It's sad and a disgrace that a town has to rename itself after a thousand years, because people whose intellectual capacity is questionable won't stop with the abuse.…

This signpost stealing seems to be a common thing. I know of a town in France called Condom which also suffered this fate a lot.

Maybe Batman, Turkey could help out?

Re: Fucking, Austria changes name to Fugging

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rape is a highly traumatic event. Getting offended at a foreigner’s well-meaning amusement that your town name means something funny in their language... doesn’t elicit much sympathy from me at all. Now getting your signs stolen isn’t very nice at all and becomes less well-meaning, I agree. But I hardly think the joke itself is anything immoral at all.

So if your five year old child has a good view of this sign from their window at home in a tiny village or walks past it regularly on their way home from school and is thereby exposed to random strangers from across the globe pretending to have sex while taking photos, you are supposed to care more that random people on the internet feel you have no right to be incensed and change the name than about the negative imp…

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