Posted on 11/20/2004 9:54:25 AM PST by OESY
LAKE CHARGOGGAGOGGMANCHAUGGAGOGGCHAUBUNAGUNGAMAUGG, Mass. - It is spelled just the way it sounds.
Unless you spell it differently, like in the sign put up by the chamber of commerce at the southern end of town, which has an O for one of the U's and an H for one of the N's.
Or the postcards at Waterfront Mary's, the lake's best-known restaurant, which have smuggled an extra "gaug" into the name.
Even for the locals, this sprawling central Massachusetts lake with the even more sprawling name, Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg - the longest place name in the country - is not for the tied of tongue.
Gone are the years when Ethel Merman and Ray Bolger made it a name you could dance to in a tune called "The Lake Song":
Oh, we took a walk one evening and we sat down on a log
By Lake Chargoggagoggman- chauggagoggchaubunagung- amaugg.
There, we told love's old sweet story and we listened to a frog
In Lake Chargoggagoggman- chauggagoggchaubunagung- amaugg.
Or the time, in 1949, when the state, on a lexicographical mercy mission, wanted to remove two of the lake's 15 G's, prompting a poet named Bertha A. Joslin to write "Touch not a G of our big lake!" followed by 55 lines of iambic tetrameter like:
Now puffed up with our pride were we
As if a pedestal ascending
We basked in fame of such a name
With all its g's unending
These days, as often as not, lots of people here call the lake Webster, after the infinitely more prosaic name of the town that encompasses it.
"I can't spell it, but that's off the record," said Bob Craver, the 52-year-old town clerk of Webster, whose family has owned homes on the lake for generations and who rows each morning, even in blizzards.
Jane Hill, vice president of the Webster Lake Association, a recently formed group of some 400 lake homeowners, rankled some folks by spelling the C-word on the club's logo, T-shirts and jackets with 49 letters - instead of 45.
"I've tried a few different spellings and every time, someone tells me I spell it wrong," Ms. Hill said. "So now I just have the official Jane Hill spelling."
There is more consensus on the meaning of Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg, but it turns out the consensus is wrong. In the 1920's, a reporter for The Webster Times, Lawrence J. Daly, wrote that it was a Nipmuck Indian word meaning "You fish on your side, I fish on my side and nobody fishes in the middle." That stuck even though Mr. Daly confessed repeatedly that he had made the whole thing up.
The real meaning, said Paul Macek, a historian in Webster, a community of about 17,000 just northwest of where Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts intersect, is "English knifemen and Nipmuck Indians at the boundary or neutral fishing place."
But today, a boat ride across the slate blue water makes one thing clear: this is no longer your English knifeman's Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg.
"Our landscape is even starting to change," said Judy Morrison, skimming across the lake on a pontoon boat one recent brisk day. "The northern side of our lake was all forest - there wasn't one house on that hillside. Within the last three years people have gone in and cut out huge tracts of trees, just so they could build a couple of houses and have a wonderful view. That really burns me up."
Decades ago, the lake - 1,442 acres flowing through three interconnecting ponds - was a haven for summer sojourners. Its shore was sprinkled with simple cottages not meant for winter habitation. There was a dance hall, theater, trolley line and steamboats.
Robert S. Reichenberg, 89, who has lived his entire life - well, six months of every year - in a cottage on one of the lake's islands, remembers when a floating vegetable salesman would row from Goat Island to Checkerberry Island and on, hawking green beans and corn.
"This place is just our home," said Mr. Reichenberg, whose cottage was on stilts until a hurricane in 1936 pushed it flush with the ground. "A lot of people didn't really know about it."
Now, most cottages have been razed and the vast majority of the 800 lakeside homes are year-round residences, some worth a million dollars or more.
Even the welcome sign in Webster, Mass., misspells its lake.
(It has an O for one U and an H for one N.)
Once home to a sprinkling of summer cottages, the 45-letter lake now
has about 800 homes on its shores (and a replica of the Statue of Liberty).
LAKE CHARGOGGAGOGGMANCHAUGGAGOGGCHAUBUNAGUNGAMAUGG ping
Uuhhhnnnggg.
AAUUG.
Change those G's to Q's and it could almost be Greenlandic.
Of course, a word that long is no record.
I know a word that is more than 1,700 letters long, and I'm not kidding :-)
OH yeah, what is it? Can you spell it?
You should see the Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg High School Marching Band try to spell out the school name during halftime!
Ack! I'm glad we live on Greand Lake. How do those people ever get checks printed or return address labels? Gah!
Krungthep Mahanakhon Bovorn Ratanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilokpop Noparatratchathani Burirom Udomratchanivet Mahasathan Amornpiman Avatarnsathit Sakkathattiyavisnukarmprasit, meaning the 'City of Angels', is known to the locals as Krungthep Mahanakhon. The rest of the world knows it as Bangkok, Thailand.
Yikes!!
Reminds me of a less than intelligent girl I used to work with who addressed an envelope to Bang Cock,Thailand.
Isn't the real name of Los Angeles something long and complicated like that? Something like City of Our Lade of the Angels? In spanish?
"OH yeah, what is it? Can you spell it?"
Of course.
kyyhkyslakkahillotaatelipalmusunnuntaikävelykatujuhla-
koristehedelmäkaramellimassatuotevalvontalaitteisto-
testauslaboratoriokäyttökertatulitikkuviinapiilohomo-
kaasulasersädehoitokotikaljakimblemestaruussarjakuva-
ristikkokilpajuoksuhiekka-aavikkoluonto-ohjelmauusinta-
vaalikokousedustusmeno-paluuruuhkabussivuoropysäköinti-
sakkolihakoukkuselkänahkavyöruusukasvimaamunajuustomaito-
rasvaimunestepinta-alahuulipunakampelaverkkomahalasku-
harjoituskrapula-aamukampapellavaöljykriisiapukeinolonkkalepo-
lomarusketusrajatietoteollisuuskiinteistömarkkinointi-
diplomi-insinööriopiskelijaperinnemaisema-arkkitehti-
kilta-aktiivihiiliteräsbetonivalurautaristisiitoshärkä-
pizzamaustevoipaperiroskapostimerkkisavusaunavastaprotesti-
marssivapautusliikevaihtoväliarvojoukkopakomatkaopas-
koirakantakorttitaikatalvisotakunniajäsenetupuolikuiva-
rehuvilja-aittakorpisuomaastohiihtoputkitiivistesilikoni-
rintataskuvaraslähtöliukumiinakenttäkeitinvesihanasaari-
ryhmätyömyyrävuosikurssikirjapainopistetulotukivarsikenkä-
kauppaopistoupseerikerhohuonepalveluammattikoulupoika-
tyttöenergiatalousaluelaajennustarvehierarkiakaavio-
suunnittelupäätöspäivävientisulkuporttiteoriapohjakunto-
urheiluruutuässäpariluistelutyylituomaripelimies-
voimisteluvideokulmakarvakuonokoppalakkipäämääräalennus-
tilataksimittarimatopurkkikeittoastiakaappipakastin-
yhdistelmälukkoseppähenkilötunnussanaleikkikalupakkipussi-
eläinkoeponnistuslautakuntalakitekstiseikkailuleiri-
telttakangaspuujalkasienipiirakkareseptivihkopakkaus-
muovikuularuiskumaalaustarvikevarastohyllymetrilakuavain-
naulakkovartiopäällikkötasogeometriavirhevaihtosähkökazoo-
pillihousupukupellehyppylankakeräkaaliaivovuotosuoja-
vaatekappalemyyntitykkilavatanssiaskelmoottoripyörä-
koppisiemenperunapalstajakoviivaintegraalioperaattori-
algebraoppilaitoskompleksilukusuoraveto-oikeusmurha-
asevarikkopilttuu
:-)
OK smarta$$, whats it mean?
"OK smarta$$, whats it mean?"
LOL LOL You don't think I read it from beginning to end, do you?
Check it out at http://www.hut.fi/~jpakkane/sana.html - there you get an explanation :-)
Now try telling me "size counts" :-)
They tried it once... the band was found three days later marching south still finishing the name... :)
And here I grew up in Sheboygan Wisconsin and I though that was bad.... :)
I love that "I got here first, you stay the hell out of my neighborhood" attitude.
Ha!. The Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg team cheer can only be done at halftime it takes so long. Give me a "C"..............
"And here I grew up in Sheboygan Wisconsin and I though that was bad."
Why is growing up in Wisconsin bad, AW?
lol was she blond?
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