• Gray@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    13
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    This is complete speculation, but I wonder if the less common inverted title (eg Lake Michigan, River Thames, etc) comes from English’s French influence. In French they usually invert the title in this way. For example, what we call the Eiffel Tower, they call the Tour Eiffel.

    • PeleSpirit@lemmy.worldOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      I just looked it up, so the French use tour for traveling from place to place and a tall thin tower? I obviously don’t know French, I wonder if it’s from touring (as in travel) small thin buildings.

      • Gray@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        I did some digging and the two words have different etymologies. So it’s a coincidence. English has many words that share the same spelling but have different meanings/etymologies as well. “Fan” for example. For “tour”, the “tower” usage comes from the Latin “turrem” which also means “tower”, and the “tour” usage comes from the Latin “tournāre” which means “to turn”.

        • PeleSpirit@lemmy.worldOP
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          That’s super interesting, so it sounds like it’s just a shortened version of two different words. Words go on such long journeys.