The Weird Rule About British River Names

[@NameExplain]

Do you prefer when river comes before or after the name?

[@dancoroian1]

I feel like it's less of a 'rule,' as the video implies, and more just an arbitrary preference based on what feels/sounds better, which then becomes the default over time -- would anybody be the least bit confused if I mentioned a fairy tale penned by the famous _Grimm Brothers,_ for example? I don't think so...and IMO the same consideration should apply to rivers or other geographical features

[@llynnmarks3382]

@dancoroian1 has a correct comment on your video. "4:30 FYI, we tend to put the accent on the second syllable, like puh-TOE-muhk (ignoring the fact that the majority of our place names are bastardized versions of indigenous names...)"

[@romad275]

For rivers in these United States with English language names, river should follow; for international rivers, use what is most common.

[@akashashen]

Should we rename The Mississippi River to The River of Minnesota?

[@lukaszdaciuk9285]

Why use "river" at all? In Polish, we say just Tamiza for the River Thames), Liffey for the River Liffey, Sekwana for the Seine River, etc. If we want to avoid confusion when there is a town with the same name, we can say Rzeka before the name. Rzeka Wisła (the Vistula River) and miasto Wisła in Poland.

[@adkeric]

The Hudson is absolutely a river. It's just not a river near NYC where it's tidal. But most of it's length from the Adirondacks its a river.

[@geirmyrvagnes8718]

Where exactly in the estuary does a river stop being a river, anyway?

[@adkeric]

@@geirmyrvagnes8718 when it’s no longer tidal and only flows in one direction all day it becomes a river.

[@geirmyrvagnes8718]

@@adkeric On a day with average tides for the day, no wind and standard atmospheric pressure, no regulation and over 50% of the width of the river? In a flat area this point will move a lot from day to day because of natural and artificial factors. Maybe the length of a river just changes from day to day, and you take the average length of the river? 😄

[@OliverLevy]

Presumably he was thinking of the "East river" on the other side of Manhattan, which is a mere tidal estuary. (But not a mere - that's a lake.)

[@theRealBohemian61]

The Thames is a tidal RIVAAAAAAH also…so why are you calling it the River Thames? 🤔

[@tozainamboku]

If you find a shopping trolley river comes before the name; but if you find a shopping cart river comes after the name.

[@NoovaRB]

I will never understand how people call trollies “Shopping carts.”

[@JP_TaVeryMuch]

Never say never ​@NoovaRB and while we're about it, don't put the horse before the cart...

[@NoovaRB]

@@JP_TaVeryMuch I’ve not no idea what your saying, but it is obviously a “Trolley,” not a “Cart”

[@JP_TaVeryMuch]

@NoovaRB Indeed so, in this island nation at least. As for why so named; well, everything's bigger in the States and thus a hand-propelled trolley's larger cousin is naturally a cart.

[@NoovaRB]

@@JP_TaVeryMuch I’m from Australia and we call it a trolley regardless of size

[@briandragoo2320]

Americans do use the UK order in naming lakes, however: Lake Erie, Lake Tahoe, etc.

[@gordonwhitney6052]

There are some exceptions - Great Salt Lake and, in Canada, Great Bear Lake, Great Slave Lake and Cold Lake. The last is a small lake on the Alberta Saskatchewan border that has a Canadian Air Force base nearby. I spent some time there as a child (well, in the town of the same name) as my uncle was in the Canadian Air Force and my family was visiting his.

[@stiab3]

Most UK lakes don't even have the word lake in the name. They use the wods lochs, loughs and llyns in Scotland, N. Ireland and Wales. And it tends to come before the name. e.g Loch Lomund In England they use water, or mere, and it comes after the name e.g Derwent Water

[@JamesRedekop]

@@gordonwhitney6052 X Lake is more common than Lake X, so far as I can determine. Only a few big lakes - the Great Lakes and their closer relatives (Winnipeg, Winnipegosis, Athabasca, Nipigon, Simcoe, St Clair -- though not Great Slave and Great Bear), Lake of the Woods, and some other mid-sized (Champlain) or fictional (Woebegone) lakes.

[@davekuder1590]

Geneva Lake is body of water in Wisconsin Lake Geneva is town on the lake

[@matthowell6562]

The US also does this with military forts, e.g., Fort McHenry, Fort Knox, and Fort Bridger.

[@amandajones8841]

The problem with using indigenous names for rivers in Australia is that you have to pick just one, when rivers go through the lands of multiple groups. Mountains are getting much stronger uptake for indigenous names, because they're much more localised. Also, the Murray is often called the River Murray, as well as the Murray River.

[@sydneypedestrian9126]

Murray River/ River Murray is regional. Seems it’s an SA thing to say River Murray. The example I thought of was the River Derwent in Hobart and I have heard people call it the River Swan in Perth.

[@michaelniemann4961]

This is a similar issue in Alaska. Even the official re-naming of Mount McKinley to “Denali” was somewhat controversial, because not every indigenous tribe that live nearby and regularly see and revere that mountain call it “Denali”. I’m all for reverting place names to indigenous names (especially names like “Big Lake” of which there are nearly 100 in the USA), but picking *which* tribe’s place name to use is always going to upset someone.

[@francisboyle1739]

I'm a Queenslander and "the River Murray" seems perfectly natural to me.

[@sydneypedestrian9126]

@@francisboyle1739 Vegans and Queenslanders.

[@dancoroian1]

4:30 FYI, we tend to put the accent on the second syllable, like _puh-TOE-muhk_ (ignoring the fact that the majority of our place names are bastardized versions of indigenous names...)

[@michaelhowell2326]

I've heard that it was named after a local tribe, but I've also heard that it was Greek for river so it was the River River.

[@BooVoidCat]

Look, he said the English respect the word order, not the pronunciation. The English have a proud tradition of refusing to pronounce words properly, which they often even extend to their own language.

[@thomicrisler9855]

​@@michaelhowell2326The name Potomac comes from an indigenous word (though it's not quite agreed which one), not the name of a tribe itself, and it's definitely not a Greek word/name lol.

[@thepostapocalyptictrio4762]

Yeah.. it took a moment to decipher the river name😀

[@theplaneguy45]

@@michaelhowell2326 A lot of names around D.C./virginia/maryland come from native words or names. The Potomac river is not an exception to this. Other examples are the Rappahannock River and the Chesapeake Bay

[@sohopedeco]

The River Plate, between Argentina and Uruguay, is usually refered to in English as "River Plate" rather than "Plate River" or "Silver River".

[@aaronsirkman8375]

Honestly, took me half a sec to realize what you were talking about; I always just think of it as the "Rio de la Plata".

[@calum5975]

I've never heard it be referred to as anything in English it Rio De La Plata.

[@SkyHighSkylar]

@@aaronsirkman8375 it took me a second to realise he wasn’t talking about the football club from Argentina, but instead the region where they’re based 😂

[@forthrightgambitia1032]

This usage probably was popularised by the WW2 Battle of the River Plate and the film about it.

[@gemmeldrakes2758]

River Plate is the older term. Most young people would never have heard it used, just as no one calls Argentina "The Argentine" anymore.

[@snardfluk]

Spanish too. The river between Texas and Mexico is Rio Grande on the US side and Rio Bravo on the Mexican side.

[@dancoroian1]

I think this is the case in all Romance languages! Romanian, French, and Italian function the same way (although you mostly would just use the name itself along with the definite article, unless you needed the word "river" for clarity)

[@GazilionPT]

Actually, it's a bit weird that the US went for a Spanish name (including the word "Rio") instead of adopting a proper English name ("Great River", "Big River") or at least change Spanish "Río" to English "River" ("Grande River"). And before you say, "That would make no sense" - they did it with the "Colorado River" (in Spanish, "Río Colorado" = "Coloured River").

[@waltermeerschaert]

@@GazilionPT Michigan has the Grand River, colorado, new mexico and texas have the Rio Grande

[@dancoroian1]

@@waltermeerschaert do people actually refer to it as such in CO, or do they call it Rio Chama?

[@Steveofthejungle8]

@@snardfluk that’s consistent with the Spanish language where adjectives come after nouns

[@scottpauls2391]

Love your show. I learn something new every episode. FYI, the Potomac river is pronounced pa-TOW-mac. Thanx for your dedication. Also like to see you in your videos. You're a very handsome man and easy on the eyes!

[@dmlfan928]

As soon as I saw the picture of Great Falls, I knew a mispronunciation was coming. And I was right.

[@chrischagnon5955]

The Hudson River absolutely is a river. You realize that there are hundreds of km of Hudson River flowing out of the Adirondack Mountains before getting to the tidal estuary in NYC, right?

[@geirmyrvagnes8718]

And then it flows down the coast until it meets the Amazon.

[@OliverLevy]

Presumably he was thinking of the "East river" on the other side of Manhattan, which is a mere tidal estuary. (But not a mere - that's a lake.)

[@SoldadoAntiBalas2008]

Ciliwung and Cisadane River

[@dancoroian1]

In Romance languages, we tend to put the word "river" before the actual name as well -- not as unique to Britain as you thought!

[@thefareplayer2254]

In Boston, the Charles is still sometimes called “the River Charles”, presumably to sound more British.

[@sydhenderson6753]

Note though Americans put Rio before some rivers with Spanish or Portuguese names, as Rio Grande and Rio Negro.

[@ShowalterdontlikeME]

In England the word "river" is left out - hence The Thames, The Mersey, The Humber......

[@jimihendrix991]

The Humber isn't a river, it's an estuary...

[@kgbgb3663]

@@jimihendrix991 Correct. I've seen an online geography quiz that asked "Which river is Hull on?" and claimed the correct answer was "the Humber". There were no end of people in the comments telling them that they were wrong, and that the correct answer is "the Hull". The full name of the city is actually "Kingston upon Hull".

[@christinebrown3359]

The city of London in Ontario Canada has a similar copycat named river within it, but the word order reversed: Thames River😊

[@57thorns]

Fake city, fake river? 🙂

[@Jame5man]

@@57thornsas much as London, Ontario sucks and I wish it didn’t exist, it is unfortunately very real

[@57thorns]

@@Jame5man If exists as an entity, but it is still a fake, just like the Mona Liza I just scribbled on a piece of paper. 🙂

[@Wifesitter]

If I understand correctly, "Rio" frequently precedes the unique name in Spanish. "Rio Grande," in Mexico/The United States, "Rio Ebro," "Rio Segura," "Rio Alcazaba," in Spain, "Rio de la Plata" in South America, or "Rio Olua" in Honduras, for instance. I believe the Portuguese refer to the Tagus as "Rio Teja," too.

[@hadiisaboss5307]

Fun fact, there's a lot of rivers called Avon in the UK because it derives from the brythonic word abon meaning river (b and v swap a lot cause they're actually quite similar, try going bvbvbvbvb and you can see) which is congnate to the Welsh afon, cornish and Britons Avon. Even the goidelic celts like abhainn in Scots gaelic and Irish (pronounced ah-ven) , and awin in Manx

[@sohopedeco]

I was under the impression that the Avon Cosmetics company had bought the naming rights of all those rivers. 😂 *joke*

[@hadiisaboss5307]

@sohopedeco waiting for nestle to try it out

[@sevenodonata]

The Irish pronuncation is closer to "Ow-inn" (ow as in owl)

[@hadiisaboss5307]

@sevenodonata thanks I didn't know that, I speak Scots gaelic not Irish yet

[@frankmerrill2366]

B and V are even less distinguishable from each other in Spanish.

[@montecorbit8280]

At 4:34 The river running through Washington DC.... We would not say "pot-a-mack" river, we would say its name...."pa-toe-mack" or "pa-tow-mack".

[@rosiefay7283]

Yes, many US river names are hard, and their spelling doesn't always clearly indicate their pronunciation.

[@Bermeee]

As a Brit, watching this made me realise there are actually numerous rivers outside the UK and Ireland that I'd put river in front of. I always say River X for the Nile, Amazon, Rhine, Jordan, Seine, Ganges, Mekong, Yangtze, Volga, and Po. I use both River X and X River with the Mississippi, Missouri, and Oder. I always say X River for the Colorado, Vistula, Yellow, Indus, Tigris, Euphrates, Elbe, Zambezi, Dnieper, and Congo. I'd be very curious to know if there's a pattern there for any other British people in particular!

[@andygilbert1877]

Made me think! I usually just put ‘The’ in front of the river. The Exe, The Seine and er…Death on The Nile. 😂

[@Random2]

Portuguese also uses river (rio) and the name, never the other way around. Sometimes the word for river is omitted but when present, it is before the name. Example, the river Tagus (o rio Tejo).

[@coldcactus35]

I prefer River Name because it feels so much more powerful to go "RIVER THAMES" than just "Thames River"

[@geirmyrvagnes8718]

Remove all the shopping trolleys, and it will make sense.

[@_Patronus_]

2:00 When you say the Hudson River isn’t technically a river it’s only true for about half of it. South of about Troy, NY, near Albany, it is a tidal estuary, but the rest of the way north to the Adirondacks it is very much a river.

[@OliverLevy]

Presumably he was thinking of the "East river" on the other side of Manhattan, which is a mere tidal estuary. (But not a mere - that's a lake.)

[@Steveofthejungle8]

Have you done a video about why the Thames is pronounced like that?

[@gyorokpeter]

The question is rather why it's spelled like that. According to Wiktionary, originally it was called "Temese", and the spelling was changed to have a "th" due to the name being mistaken for Greek. There is a story that one of the kings of England who was originally from France was so bad at English that he couldn't pronounce the "th" sound and called it the "Tems", and since people speak the King's English, if the King says it's "Tems" then that's how it's supposed to be said, however this only seems to be a cool story to tell to tourists.

[@stiab3]

There is a River Thame (not to be confused with River Tame), and that's pronounced with the 'th' sound. It's a tributary of the Thames.

[@lukaszdaciuk9285]

3:54 It's the River Liffey in Ireland.

[@romad275]

In California, most Spanish names were anglicized: Rio Americano/American River, Rio de Las Plumas/Feather River, Rio Orso/Bear River, etc. However, the Spanish form is sometimes used for a location not on the river, ie. while the Bear River is a tributary of the Feather River, the Spanish Rio Orso is used for a Census Designated Place on California Route 70, located 10 miles southeast of the Bear River.

[@thomicrisler9855]

4:28 As a native of the Washington, DC metro area, it took me a second to realize he was saying Potomac lol. It's pronounced /pəˈtoʊmək/ puh-TOE-muhk, not /pɒtɔˈmæk/ pot-o-MACK.

[@vincent412l7]

River + name seems.more convenient. If you alphabetise all these bodies of water, then the rivers would be together, the lakes, creeks, etc would all be grouped.

[@thijsbos]

In Dutch we do not use River after or before the name. We just say Thames, Amstel, Mississippi or Rhine

[@gary.h.turner]

But in the case of Mississippi, you surely need to specify whether you are talking about the river or the state?

[@thijsbos]

@gary.h.turner We use The mostly in front of rivers. Though usually it depends on context. Believe it or not, but both Mississippi's don't come up a lot in Dutch conversations. The Amazon is a better example, and in that the river is usually specified as river at the end, or rainforest depending on which you're talking. But that's really the exception.

[@fsbayer]

4:20 What's interesting though is that in languages which simply don't allow any such concatenation at all, like German (neither "der Fluss Rhein" nor "der Rhein Fluss" would be valid), I find we tend to stick with the British order. "The river Rhine" and "the river Danube" sound fine, "the Rhine river" and "the Danube river" sound bizarre to my ears.

[@sirBrouwer]

in Dutch its even more odd. with your example of the Rhine. in Dutch it depends on context. if used in full it would be ''De rivier de Rijn'' literal translation would be . The river the Rhine. however in more standard it would be just ''de Rijn" the Rhine. On maps we label it just by it's name without telling you it's a river. however in plural the wordt river goes behind the names.

[@ChrispyDubstep]

I'm British and I still hear people say the river Nile, or the river Ganges, maybe because those names were brought to the UK a long time ago compared to others?

[@sammarks9146]

As an American, I'm trying to imagine us saying "The River Mississippi", and laughing. (Also, side note, the river through Washington DC, Potomac, is pronounced Puh-TOE-mac.)

[@geirmyrvagnes8718]

If it contained zero shopping carts, it would make more sense.

[@Ithirahad]

For some reason, certain names sound much worse in reverse order than others. "River Mississippi" seems pretty awkward, but some other rivers I'm more familiar with sound just fine - the River Manatee in Florida and the River Delaware in the central northeast, for instance.

[@12what34the]

Should also note, the sippi part of Mississippi means river. Word means Great River

[@geirmyrvagnes8718]

@@12what34the So in Spanish, it would be called Rio Grande? 😅

[@12what34the]

@@geirmyrvagnes8718 yeah somewhat, tho I feel Grande can be interpreted as big rather than Great

[@12what34the]

This may be of relevant interest: the "sippi" part of Mississippi means river. The whole word means Great River in various Algonquian languages. Also "sippi" technically should be pronounced "sip-pih" not "sip-pee" as many people trend toward

[@frankmerrill2366]

And "Sahara Desert" means "Desert Desert"...

[@84Reyn]

This reminds me of how people in southern California put the in front of their Freeways (ie the 405, the 5) and Northern Californians do not. We just say 24 or 680 when telling people which freeway we are using.

[@frankmerrill2366]

And Toronto does that, too.

[@nlpnt]

The usual explanation is that it's a holdover from referring to freeways by name rather than number, but other cities have named urban highways so I think it's because LA has major routes numbered 1, 10, 101 and 110 and without the definite article it could sound like speaking in binary.

[@kevmur1000]

In Ireland we do this with county names too: County Dublin, County Galway etc. Unlike the US where they have Orange County, L.A. County etc. or the British Notts County, Derby County.

[@kevmur1000]

Those last two are football clubs of course. I'm not sure if they reflect the usual British usage.

[@kgbgb3663]

@@kevmur1000 I think that XXX County strongly suggests a football team. There is even a football team called Newport County, despite Newport being a city rather than a county. I think that we'd say Nottinghamshire or Derbyshire without using the word county at all. If you were forced to do so because for instance you were explicitly listing counties, you'd say the County of Nottinghamshire, not the county of Nottingham.

[@uingaeoc3905]

I always call the one in Egypt as 'River Nile'.

[@frankhooper7871]

We also use this order for one (yes, only one) of our English counties: County Durham.

[@frankmerrill2366]

Country Antrim in Northern Ireland, County Cork in Ireland...

[@auldfouter8661]

In Scotland some rivers are named in the different style. That being Water 0f ( insert river here). eg Water of Deugh. In the old days the River Ayr was often called the Water of Ayr.

[@lynxraide]

In Australia it actually varies and while officially it might be X river sometimes it can be interchangeable and be river X. Examples are while there is Hawkesbury River near Sydney and Swan River in Perth, you get the River Torrens in Adelaide and your example Murray River also gets referred to as River Murray

[@PBGetson]

The photo you have of the Yukon River 4:32 is at the famous Five Finger Rapids (which now I think of as Four Finger Rapids since one of the smaller islands has recently collapsed.) I've probably stood beside that very spot this picture was taken.

[@PockASqueeno]

As an American, I was not aware of this. I’ve always just said “Thames River.” Do y’all say the same thing with other bodies of water like oceans, seas, and lakes? Do you say “Ocean Atlantic” or “Sea Mediterranean?” Lake names kind of vary here in the States. We have Lake Michigan, not Michigan Lake…but we’ve also got the Great Salt Lake, not Lake Great Salt.

[@vvalchanov]

Atlantic and Mediterranean are adjectives. Great Salt also sounds like a description of the lake.

[@Arturino_Burachelini]

We have "the river Dnipro" ("річка Дніпро") on the maps, but can write "The Dnipro river" ("Дніпро-ріка") for poetic purposes

[@richjames2540]

Perhaps it is because most rivers in the USA share their name with towns, cities, states etc so folks said the Mississippi or the Hudson but added the river bit as a clarifier. It is mire common fir Americans to talk about rivers just using the name and not saying river. 🎶Moon River 🎶🎶 Just a thought, we Brits do not talk about the Canal Grand Union or the Canal Manchester Ship do we?

[@57thorns]

Then we have Swedish: The general word for river is "flod", except for our larger native rivers, that are called "älv". Some cities at the end of a river have names related to the rivers, such as Piteå (literally Pite River) that the locals pronounnce "Pite" because "å" is about the river (Pite Älv). And you thought English was weird? 🙂

[@dashconsult1211]

In Ghana we have something similar. For instance we call the Volta ; our longest river - River Volta.

[@eiran_o_ddwywent]

On the point of British River names being ancient, of the three rivers near me, only one has a somewhat certain etymology and even then it always comes with a "may originally have meant"

[@edlacy1789]

The Hudson River IS a river. It runs southward through eastern New York state, and empties into the Atlantic Ocean at the southern end of Manhattan Island, as can be attested by the people who live in the Hudson Valley. The image you included in your video was only the point where the river empties into the Atlantic. This would be like characterizing the Thames as only the point where it flows into the North Sea.

[@gabrielking1247]

The New Zealand examples… small stream in the middle of nowhere and I cannot find a “Tahiti river” anywhere

[@geirmyrvagnes8718]

New Zealand is mostly put on maps for decoration if they happen to draw "Australia" too far left. Can't expect it to be too consistent.

[@NBK1122]

The Thames River (that rhymes with James) is in Connecticut. For future sequel videos: Bays (Bay of Biscayne, Tampa Bay) and Lakes/Lochs (Lake Michigan, Great Salt Lake, Loch Lomond)

[@GaasubaMeskhenet]

I'm so glad you made this video. I thought maybe I was crazy when I compared the spelling Thames to how I was remembering it being said lol

[@mcswordfish]

The River-Name convention in Britain also ties in with Celtic language conventions. The modern Gaelic name for the River Clyde is Abhainn Chluaidh (pronounced roughly as Av-ain Chloo-ay), its more ancient name (and the name of the Brythonic kingdom on her banks) was Allt Clut (Allt and Abhainn are both Gaelic words for River). It also ties to the larger naming conventions around waterways. Place names start Aber and Inver are at the mouth of a river of the same name. I live in Inverness, which is at the mouth of the River Ness, which is in turn fed by Loch Ness. Finally, you get the comedy water-names, such as various Rivers Avon, where Avon is an Anglicisation of Afyn (the Welsh equivalent of Abhainn) - literally River River. And closer to where I am, we have the imaginatively named Loch Lochy.

[@tzor]

Your reasoning makes sense. A good example (which involves the word river but not a river's name) is my own town located at the "Head of the River." Drop the "of the" and swap the order and you get the name of my town, Riverhead (which in turn is shortened from River's Head). As of preference, I think it's emphasis. To abstract this, the "River Fred" is broadly proclaiming "I am a river." While the "Fred River" is broadly proclaiming "My name is Fred."

[@erictaylor5462]

What about that river in the US, you know, that one called the River Big. AKA Rio Grand

[@FoggyD]

You were right to mention both the St Lawrence River and France, since the former (being Canadian) obviously has an official French name: la Fleuve Saint-Laurent. That's right, the name of the river comes last, unlike in English! Though the one time I flew into Montreal it looked to me more like a massive lake...

[@amyhergest]

I love the extra syllable you tack onto the end of some sentences. I think it's so charming - and, as far as KZbin is concerned. it confirms that you're not one of those hateful AI generated slush-machines x

[@frankmerrill2366]

Sort of like the 1964 Searchers hit song where they keep singing "Needles and Pin-za"?? lol

[@kgbgb3663]

I find it grates. But you win some, you lose some, and I expect he'd rather win you and lose me than vice versa!

[@Defektyd]

This is a great video. It's a shame that I've just had to report *SEVEN* different bot comments. I wish KZbin did more against these bots so they wouldn't flood the comments of channels like this.

[@hypercomms2001]

"The Yarra River " in the case of Melbourne Australia.

[@stephenarbon2227]

An Australian example of never saying more than you have to, usually just called 'the Yarra'.

[@jorgelotr3752]

8:42 I don't understand the name of that river, how is it spelled and where can you find it on a map? My attempts of making sense of it have failed, as I can only find the Samara river (which is an alternate name for the Volga) and an ecuatorian river called Zamora (after a spanish city whose name most likely comes from the arabic, or is otherwise a shortening of its old roman name), but neither of those mean "wild" in spanish, nor is there a word for "wild" in spanish that sounds remotely like what you pronounce.

[@michaelniemann4961]

It’s funny to me when a language already has the word “River” or “lake” or “glacier” in the name, but then it is added again in English anyway. For example, in Iceland lots of tourists visit Europe’s largest glacier “Vatnajökull”. “Jökull” is the word for glacier, so Vatnajökull already means the “Vatna Glacier”, but you never see it referred to as such. It is always “The Vatnajökull glacier” when said in English 😂.

[@peterwilliams6289]

Interesting that Australia and New Zealand, colonized by England, both put "River" after the name. For the Australian ones, here's a wild theory: they were mostly named after British governors (Lachlan Macquarie alone has 3 that I can think of!) or English personages, so maybe they wanted to emphasize who they were named after more than the word "river".

[@macaroni3062]

i think there's equal rationalization for both coming from comparison to other English naming conventions. English speakers probably observe things like _City of Manchester, Manchester City,_ while also observing _Doctor named Jensen, Doctor Jensen._ It can definitely be argued that "of" in more traditional english was not _really_ saying "that's a river pertaining to Mississippi", but that it was stating its very name, as you would casually refer to that river as just "the Mississippi". Another comment brought up Lakes as well, and i think that is the same influence. Not many lakes are "Lakes Pertaining to [namesake]", thought plenty validly are like "Lake Washington" in Washington State, they are just Lakes Named XYZ, like Father Patrick, Doctor Antonov, Lady Black, President Wong; Lake Huron

[@Theblueshark27]

I think another example of the "possesive of" being dropped but the word order remaining is o'clock. 7 of the clock became 7 o'clock rather than Clock's 7. Yes we still sort of have the "of" there but most people wouldnt think of it that way.

[@TomMarvan]

Congratulations on 374k subscribers - and also saying the word “river” 375k times in this video! 😂 Another great video, Ty!

[@PeloquinDavid]

What do you mean: the Hudson isn't a river? You may be thinking of the East River on the other side of Manhattan (which is a salt water strait linking Long Island Sound to NY harbour). But the Hudson? It flows down from upstate NY - emptying into NY harbour and is indeed a body of fresh water flowing downhill - i.e. a "river" by any definition.

[@RavenFilms]

I have wondered this for years! You are 2 for 2 in things I have wondered aloud for ever 20 years. You did it with 2 videos in a row! I do miss the weekly alphabetical names too.

[@magnusdagbro8226]

If the baby's name is "Happy", then "the baby Happy" works.

[@forthrightgambitia1032]

Wait until you find out how Ireland names its counties... 🤯

[@DarkKnight52365]

i rarely hear a river name as "The Mississippi River" and simply as "The Mississippi" but that could be mostly i live in the American south and we tend to shorten thing name like "Gator" instead of "Alligator"

[@richardokeefe7410]

It’s Mount This, Port That, and Lake Theother. All of them without an article. @nd in Australia, you’d normallly say “the Yarra” or “the Murray” without using “river” at all. And in New Zealand” it would be “the Waikato” or “the Waikato”. We all say “the Hudson” or “the Amazon” or “the Irriwaddy”, no?

[@johane4764]

Malay has the same word order as well, Sungai Klang is literally River Klang, but somehow it's Klang River in English.

[@CyclingSteve]

There are exceptions, In London we have the New River, the Channelsea River, the Waterworks River, City Mill River.

[@Eric_Hunt194]

There's also the Hogsmill River which joins the Thames in Kingston, which I used to live next to.

[@TheImzadi1979]

Michigan in the US has the River Raisin and the River Rouge. There are also two called the River Styx. There's also the Little River Raisin.

[@TheGadgetPanda]

Honestly never noticed this before. I’d worked upon the assumption (I think) that the word order varied on a river by river basis, not a country basis. Consider me edumacated.

[@jovanweismiller7114]

I would feel odd saying "Thames River" just as I would feel odd saying "River Blue" about the river that flows through this area of SE Nebraska & NE Kansas.

[@oronjoffe]

In most languages the placement of “river” vs the specific river’s name is determined by the syntax of that language, not by other considerations. English is unusual in that regard.

[@curtgozaydin922]

I know you didn’t give this example of mixed languages, but me being grown up in the south part of Texas of course we have the border between Texas and Mexico is “the Rio Grande river”. If you pass that and translate exactly the Spanish words into their English counterparts you would then get.”The River Big River”, but you’d have to remember that in Spanish many times the noun is followed by the modifier or adjective so “Rio” River only after that word do you put “Grande” big or large! Kinda Cool, huh?

[@spencerburke]

"A friend of Patrick's" is an example of a double genitive in English, with the of and the 's fulfilling the same grammatical function.

[@Cheeseburgermafia]

I've heard people say 'the river hudson' when it's clear they intend to show an upper class old money persona. No idea if it's a real thing. It's just a thing I heard from a kid in a polo shirt in the late 90s.

[@DerekWitt]

Many rivers in Spanish-speaking countries have a similar pattern. I’m not sure if rivers in Brazil follows the same pattern in Portuguese. So, the Rio Grande sounds redundant if it’s called the Rio Grande River.

[@BCrossing]

Is this the same trend that causes tube stations to be called XXX North instead of North XXX?

[@cat_in_a_sock1948]

i never even put the word river in the names when i speak, its just the thames, the avon, the mersey, becuase at the end of the day most of the river names literally just meant river or flow and the difference in naming is because of the differing brythonnic dialects and languages. like we can know ho speaks what language back thousands of years ago by where all the avons are.

[@D3Vlicious]

The Hudson is a river, it's the East River on the other side of Manhattan that's a tidal estuary.

[@eefaaf]

I can't think of any example where we would add 'rivier' to the name of a river, neither in front or after the distinguishing name. Maybe to disambiguate we could say 'de rivier de Hudson' to contrast it from the Hudson Baai, but normally just 'de Hudson' would do.

[@frankmerrill2366]

Riviere-du-Loup, in Quebec.

[@eefaaf]

@@frankmerrill2366 Oh, I see I forgot to mention I was looking for Dutch examples for rivers in the Netherlands.

[@boubayaga_]

River of Thames or the other examples feel more like they're describing the region the river comes from and the river is the one in that region, which I feel makes more sense for earlier societies

[@Bezanthemum]

Hello. The Hudson River is very much a river. You may be confusing it with the East River on the other side of Manhattan, which is a tidal strait dividing Manhattan from Long Island and is not at all a river.

[@Beez-III]

the name Avon means river in the local tribes dialect, same with Thames, same with the Tweed etc.

[@pedromenchik1961]

it gets even more complicated when you factor in lakes. For instance: Lake Ontario vs Yellowstone Lake

[@wendychavez5348]

In New Mexico, our biggest river is the Río Grande. It drives me crazy when people refer to it as the Río Grande River, because río translates to river! In Spanish, the adjective goes after the word it's describing, so río is described by grande, or big. A literal translation of Río Grande river is "River Big river," and I try not to talk to tourists because I don't know how to graciously correct them. Thanks for helping me understand that this is a fairly conventional naming quirk!

[@Eric_Hunt194]

To be fair, many rivers have a name that just means "river". Avon and Potomac for example.

[@CamrynBrown0]

Interesting to contrast with islands. All English speakers would say "Treasure Island" not "Island Treasure" but some of the "of" forms of the "unique name second" type exist e.g. Isle of Man.

[@frankmerrill2366]

Isla de Juventud in western Cuba...

[@markthetrois420]

Down in the American Southwest, through New Mexico and along the Texas/Mexico border, runs the Rio Grande, which means Big River in spanish. But we deffo keep the spanish naming convention of rio then the unique name

[@kgbgb3663]

That was very interesting. But it didn't cover what I hoped you could give an explanation for -- why it is that in English the names of rivers (almost?) always contain the definite article "the", even if the word "river" is omitted. So, the Danube, the Ganges, the Hudson, the Thames, the Rhone, etc etc. Usually the word "the" indicates that you have selected the most important or most relevant from a set of similar things of the same type or same description, and honoured it with the definite article. So "the Cape" for the Cape of Good Hope, or "the Potteries" for the collection of potteries that constituted a whole conurbation. But there is no set of danubes of which the Danube is the most important. So why is there a definite article so definitely there? P.S. I am now less inclined to use my local bus service, as they have introduced automated announcements saying things like "This is the service 7. To. George Street." For crying out loud, there isn't a set of 7s, from which you have selected the service one. "Service" can be used as an adjective for a load of laundry. ("This is the service wash, but I'll do these delicates by hand myself.") But not for numbers. I've tried to hear it as grammatical by treating the "the" as picking out the westbound of the two service 7s, the other one being "the service 7 to the Marina", but the pauses on either side of "to" are too long for it to be convincing. The ungrammaticality puts me on edge for the whole bus ride.

[@grewdpastor]

The use of the article "the" in these cases are normal in all Germanic languages. Maybe because once rivers and mountains were seen as persons??

[@SchwarzeBananen]

Interestingly, in German is adding Fluss to the river is superfluous. It gives, however, a poetic tint to the river. Does that happen in English too?

[@Eric_Hunt194]

Yeah- in normal conversation you'd just use the name of the river or simply say "the river" because the context is clear. For example if you were in Parliament Square and asked for directions to Waterloo station, the person you asked would say "cross the river" and it would be obvious which river they meant. If someone persistently said "the River Thames" every time they needed to describe the big river in London, it would seem odd and unnatural.

[@t.a.k.palfrey3882]

Great pun. Thanks. Fluous and the German Fluss both derive from the Latin fluere (to flow). 😅

[@michaelkemp8696]

I just looked at the Wikipedia Article for the Murray River (in Australia) because I felt I had heard River Murray too -- seems that it is a South Australian quirk (which is where I hail from originally). Might be due to the amount of English migration to South Australia. Always knew I was odd.

[@FumerieHilaire]

Spanish and Portuguese also put Rio before the name, Rio Guadalquivir, Rio Tejo etc

[@jamesbrowne1004]

If the Dutch introduced the habit of putting "river" after the name, how were we left with both Kill van Kull and the Catskill.

[@waterdrager93]

It would be really strange because Dutch likes to put the name second: De stad Amsterdam, Rivier de Nijl, Luchthaven Schiphol,

[@VoidUnderTheSun]

Guess you also see this in something like "Table Mountain" and "Mount Rushmore"

[@kNo1bdy]

I think you mean the East River isn't technically a river, the Hudson river is 315 miles long. Its source is in the Adirondacks.

[@GazilionPT]

I noticed the same thing with counties, where Americans say, e.g., "Richmond County", while the Irish say, e.g., "County Mayo". I think the English just omit the word "county" because their counties either end in the traditional "-shire" or they have unique names that they expect people recognise as being the name of a county. And - just found out - the Scottish, with some rare exceptions, either use the "X-shire" or the "County of X" configurations.

[@Escapee5931]

County Durham is the only English one I think.

[@Eric_Hunt194]

Weirdly in Wales most counties are referred to by the Welsh names even when speaking English (Powys, Gwynedd, Conwy) though there are exceptions (Pembrokeshire, Flintshire) again without specifying that it's a county except for the "-shire" ending. Though the Welsh word for county ("sir") has the same root as the English "-shire" suffix, but comes before the county name... So "sir Gwynedd" means "county (of) Gwynedd".

[@ChakatSandwalker]

Hmm. I can't find a 'Tahiti River' in New Zealand. Vaguely similar is Tītahi Bay (right syllables, different order); did you mean that? Charwell River does exist, though; it's in the northeast of the South Island.

[@JJ-si4qh]

There isn’t necessarily a correct language, but there is definitely incorrect language if it hinders communication

[@patrickwhite5131]

In Lincolnshire we have a few rivers where the “river” comes after. Eg Steeping River, East Glen River and West Glen River.