Via e-mail from reader Kent L., who calls it 'unfortunate', we have this church notice-board:
Er . . . yes . . . quite! I found it hard to accept as real until I looked it up. There really is such a place, and such a church! It's marked by the green arrow on the map below, in northern Kentucky, just below the Ohio border, near Cincinnati.
I'm sure that when the place and the church were named, maybe a century or two ago, it was done for the furry aquatic animals that were probably found there. Unfortunately, the meaning of words and phrases has changed . . .
Peter
11 comments:
Are we sure it was just linguistic drift? The S-I are known for some fairly risque place names that weren't changed until the Victorian era.
"Tickle Cunt Creek" comes to mind..
Ouch... Of course this is happening world wide, but yeah, that's leaving a mark...
I recently photographed a "Suck Creek Baptist Church" in Chesnee, South Carolina.
Beaver Lick is only a few miles from Big Bone Lick. Insert Joke Here.
Yeah, I'm not 100% positive it wasn't deliberate. A lot of pioneers had a pretty earthy sense of humor. Squaw Peak mountain, which recently had a name change for being un-PC, was in fact the PC change from the original Squaw Tit mountain...
Outside of Little Rock, Arkansas, there is a state part called, "Toad Suck Park". I don't even want to think about the origins of that phrase.
Bob Perrow
There is a Log Dump Bridge on the way to Denali Nat'l Park.
Funny old world, no?
Jim
For Bob Perrow, a Mason Williams "Them" Song:
Them Toad Suckers
How about Them Toad Suckers,
Ain't they clods?
Sittin' there suckin'
Them green toady-frogs.
Suckin' them hop-toads,
Suckin' them chunkers,
Suckin' them leapy types,
Suckin' them plunkers.
Look at Them Toad Suckers,
Ain't they snappy?
Suckin' them bog-frogs
Sure makes'em happy.
Them huggermugger Toad Suckers,
Way down south,
Stickin' them sucky-toads
In they mouth.
How to be a Toad Sucker?
No way to duck it.
Gittchyself a toad,
Rare back and suck it!
Beaver Lick, Big Bone Lick, Blue Lick, Bullitts Lick - these are all real place names and they were all named after salt licks.
A salt lick is a place where natural salt brine comes to the surface near a creek or stream. They were very common in that part of Kentucky during pioneer times. Animals, particularly deer and buffalo, would sometimes congregate there due to the available salt and most of the early trails were carved out by these animals as they moved from one salt lick to another.
Beaver Lick was named because of the extraordinary number of beavers found near there. Big Bone Lick was named because of the large mastodon bones that were found nearby. (There is a state park located there now.) Blue Lick was named for the color of the brine in the salt pools. (Google the battle of Blue Lick for some interesting reading about Daniel Boone.)
Of course nobody in 1780 could foresee what the slang connotation of the word "beaver" would mean 200 years later.
The sign is still funny.
Reminds me of the part of a Monty Python film (I think) where one of the heroic Roman soldiers is named Biggus Dickus - and both he and the local official who introduces him appear mystified when onlookers are convulsed with amusement when his name is announced.
I went to college in central Kentucky - there was sometimes some useful dorm humor derived from Big Bone Lick, as well as from Bug Tussle and Rabbit Hash (two other actual places in that state) - though less obscenity was involved in those last two.
Until very recent years, there was still a "Nigger Brown Lake" up in Michigan, not far from Cadillac - I used to own property up there.
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