[lbo-talk] toponyms

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

> lil help?
> 
> working on a list of toponyms which originate as proper place 
> names but 
> then come to have a more generalized meaning. examples would include:
> 
> Babel
> Mecca
> hell
> seltzer
> Siberia
> Boeotian
> champagne
> solecism
> Chautauqua
> Waterloo
> Pax Romana
> Watergate
> Gibraltar
> Timbuktu
> El Dorado
> 
> 
> any other good ones?

Balkanization
Polnische wirtschaft (=Polish i.e. messy economy)
Wild West
America  (2 meanings: El Dorado and Wild West)
Dixie - land -crat (or Mason-Dixon line)
Bantustan
Zion
Brazilianisation (=acute social stratification between rich and poor)
Continental breakfast (refering to continental Europe)
Selling Brooklyn bridge
China wall
Shanghai (=obtaining a crew of a ship by abduction)
Atlantis
Greek (=obscure)
Trojan horse
Olympian 
Caucasian

Wojtek