the case for dildo

local loyalty to off-color place names is best exemplified by Dildo, Newfoundland, a small fishing village forty miles west of St. John's. Dildo appeared on maps of the areas as early as 1771, and the name is not an isolated occurrence: the topographic map covering the village also identifies Dildo Islands, Dildo Arm, and Dildo Cove. The name's origin is obscure. Although the Oxford English Dictionary mentions a late sixteenth-century term for artifical penis ("dildoe of glasse"), it's unlikely the original namer had in mind the shape or function of the electromechanical vibrator that was invented in the 1880s as a medical device, marketed in the early twentieth century as a "personal care appliance," and reintroduced in the 1960s as a sex toy. In 1985 Robert Elford, a villager embarrassed by the connotation, collected nearly four hundred signatures on a petition asking the provincial government to change the name. Elford, who apparently had no particular replacement in mind, backed off after neighbors who liked the name started ridiculing him in public and calling him at home.

Diverse factors account for Elford's failure. His initiative lacked the homophobic imperative behind the renaming of Gayside, Newfoundland (now Baytona), in 1985 or whatever anti-Soviet feeling inspired the renaming of Mount Stalin (a British Columbia landmark now commemorating Don Peck, a highly regarded local conservationist) in 1987. Local residents had few reminders of Dildo's new, potentially offensive connotation --- sex aids were not a regular feature in the news or a lingering icon of cold war rhetoric --- and those with a sense of humor could delight in the salacious juxtaposition of Dildo Arm and Spread Eagle Bay. Indeed, jokes about the name were a way of being noticed, and perhaps an attraction to tourists who might stop by to mail a postcard or sample local hospitality during Dildo Days, a mid-August weekend featuring "a live band ... enjoyable games and activities, [and] a beer tent for people 19 and older." The long-standing name was reinforced by its identification of several nearby natural features, and the village had its own postal code (A0B 1P0), which would entail the cost and annoyance of changing one's address. What's more, some Dildodians no doubt felt the same sense of priority as residents of Swastika, Ontario, who resisted the provincial government's renaming their community in 1940 to honor Winston Churchill. Defiantly they ripped down the official sign and put up a replacement proclaiming, "To Hell with Hitler. We had the swastika first."

-- Mark Monmonier From Squaw Tit to Whorehouse Meadow: How Maps Name, Claim, and Inflame, which naughty and offensive toponymy book I am reading right now and greatly enjoying. Will report on more thoroughly later.

Comments

[dkp]

did you know that carrie fisher visited dildo with her children? and another movie star in tow as well. i read it (maybe in slate?) last year, and found the thought (and photos) of dildo, newfoundland, to be both cute and strange.

[dumb stupid dildo marketer whose link was removed for bad grammar]

Now I know the beginning of dildo, that even before it was very controversial. Nice post!very informative..

[lame online dildo marketer whose link was removed for bad grammar]

another informative post.....it's my first time to really knew about a place with a dildo on its name....interesting!