I see that Google Maps now lists Lake Ontario as Lake America!
It’s a silly business — it’s obviously just Donald Trump trolling Canadians and the Left (I repeat myself). I had no problem with the old name. But on the other hand, we had to sit back and take it while Columbus Day became Indigenous Peoples’ Day, Fort Bragg became Fort Liberty, mothers became “birthing persons”, the Redskins became the Commanders, the Indians became the Guardians, Hispanics became LatinX, Mt. McKinley became Denali, Boy Scouts became just Scouting, and just about everything honoring the heroes of the South was spat on, renamed, or destroyed.
So: Lake America? Sure. Fine. It’s fun to watch the reactions. But we really do have more important things to think about.
2 Comments
I spent the better part of my youth about ten miles south of Lake Ontario, and not a little of that time shoveling or wading through Ontario’s lake effect snow. The Iroquois were rather nasty neighbors but they did leave us lovely toponyms, Ontario being one of them. I strongly favor conservation of all Indian place names in general use before 1970, while opposing, although not so strongly, most Indian place names imposed since that time.
Conquerors change place names, either because the old names were forgotten when a conquered people perished or to impress a conquered people who did not perish that the land is no longer theirs. “Wiping a people off the map” can mean exterminating them or erasing their place names. The fact that the European conquerors of North America retained so many Indian place names shows they were not simply the bloodstained beasts our historians today tell us they were.
I understand that Trump is just trolling but have stopped laughing at the trollings of Trump. As you say, the state of the world is at present no joke. I would add that a clown who doesn’t know when to stop clowning may be, in the worst sense, a clown.
JMSmith,
Yes, I’m not surprised, given your specialty, that you’re not enthusiastic about this. There’s history in the names of those lakes, and local character. Changing “Ontario” to “America”, rather than to something else, also has a sort of dull-witted bluntness about it, especially now that the Gulf of Mexico has already been given the same name. Couldn’t it have been something more interesting? Lake Niagara? Lake Oswego? (How about Lake Effect?)
As I said, I enjoy the pushback after all the onomastic depradations of our foes, but this one did seem a little childish. And we do have far more important things to attend to.