The Los Angeles Angels translates to “THE THE ANGELS ANGELS”

is that a “Pleonasm” or an “Idiomatic expression” or just a redundant phrase like “anonymous stranger”?

Any other amusing examples?

There was that thing on QI a while back – a lot of river names (like Avon) themselves mean “river” so they are effectively called ‘River River’ and theres a hill in the lakes (the name of which escapes me just now) which is called in effect ‘Hill Hill Hill’

Near me theres a “Hillside Farm” which is beside a hill that is known as “Hillside Farm Hill”

River Avon is one of the River River things I think.

Place in Derbyshire called ‘Breedon on the Hill’.

Bree = hill
Don = hill

Therefore it’s really called ‘Hillhill on the Hill’

oops sorry DD – i was editing when you posted that

Torpenhow hill

tor – hill
pen – hill
how – hill
hill – hill

so hill hill hill hill

thought it was in devon though?

nope, I’m wrong and you are correct,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torpenhow_Hill

Theres also the more obvious ‘Loch Lochy’ in Scotland, although in that case the ‘lochy’ is an anglecised ‘lochaidh’ which means ‘dark’ I think.

The “lin” in Lincoln is the same as the “lin” in Dublin.

(completely unrelated, but I’ve been dying to throw it in.)

The Los Angeles Angels translates to “THE THE ANGELS ANGELS”

That one is actually just modernly stupid. They’re “officially” the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Previously just the Anaheim Angels but the owners wanted to appeal to the LA population for greater ticket sales.

completely unrelated, but I’ve been dying to throw it in

yes but he is still English so suck it up 😉

yes but he is still English so suck it up

😀

We’ll be getting both passports.

My favorite instance of something like this was in the pocket dictionary I had at school which had almost flippantly brief descriptions for each entry. Two adjacent ones were:

Kidney: A bean shaped organ
Kidney Bean: A bean shaped like a kidney

The Avon thing always amuses me, as one of the Avons runs through Chippenham. I understand it derives from pre-Saxon British, or Celtic, where river was Afon, which is still the case in Wales, and which got Anglicised to Avon, so a stranger, asking what a stretch of water was called, would be told, ‘river, of course’, but took it as being the actual name.
Hence ‘River River’. 😀

River Avon is one of the River River things I think.

But which Avon? There are loads of them

We used to have an office in Ilford, which roughly translated means Crap Hole

There’s a “Loch Loch” in Perthshire.

There’s a “Loch Loch” in Perthshire.

I was interviewed once by a guy called Martin Martin