On Tue, 20 Nov 2007 15:48:53 -0500, D C wrote:
N Hurst wrote:
I can't say anything about your cowboy argument, but there's a good
chance you're wrong about the "Richard Americ" thing.
Good chance, as in 100%.
Make that 0%. Unless of course you can tell me how Columbus managed to
name a place he hadn't actually been to, and had not the slightest
idea was there.
I was taught that the Americas were named after the Italian
cartographer Amerigo Vespucci.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerigo_Vespucci
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americas#Naming
Yeah, that's it.
God Bless Vespucciland.
There you lay your finger on the problem. The land naming conventions
of the day were subject to a strict protocol. What that meant was that
you could not name a new country for somebody's first name unless he
was a king, in which case you used his regnal name. If you were naming
for a commoner, you had to use his surname,giving - as you say -
Vespucciland. The fact that it is called America tells us that it was
named for a commoner whose surname was Americ. Which is exactly where
we are.
d
--
Pearce Consulting
http://www.pearce.uk.com