11 April 2012

Gotham

A village in Nottinghamshire, a county in central England, 'Gotham' has been settled for millennia. In the medieval era, it became famed as a place settled by madmen, for, at least according to legend, the villagers feigned insanity in order to avoid being put to work building a royal road, which was then rerouted away from Gotham. Washington Irving borrowed this legend in a short story of 1807, calling New York 'Gotham'...
- Word Origin: 2012 Day-to-Day Calendar, Wednesday, April 11

2 comments:

Patrick said...

I love this. Explains a lot. Gotham always suggested the dark, seedy, psychopathic side of the place to me. Metropolis never leaves the 1950s in my mind's eye, and The Big Apple always conjurs hordes of t-shirted and baseball-capped tourists standing about midtown in enormous herds. What other nicknames are there? I wonder if there are any that suggest a place I would like?

Jeff said...

The Capital of The World
The City
The City So Nice, They Named It Twice
The City That Never Sleeps
Empire City
Hymie Town

HYMIE TOWN?! I dunno. Maybe that one. Either way, you and I are henceforth to refer to it as HYMIE TOWN.