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bayard(d) |
Vauxhall |
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Posts: 53 (02/05/07 12:40:48) |
Does anyone know why all Russian railway stations are called "Vauxhall" (voksal) and does it have any connection with Vauxhall station in London?
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24450239 |
Re: Vauxhall | ||
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Posts: 37 (02/05/07 12:43:53) |
Yes, apparently taken from the Vauxhall station in London; once an important station, now a suburban one.
Vauxhall apparently derives from the manor house of a Norman knight called Fulk, somewhere near Birmingham (where Vauxhall Motors sprang up). As to how the name was transferred from the Midlands to South London... |
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aldiboronti |
Re: Vauxhall | ||
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Posts: 8497 (02/05/07 12:44:45) |
See this wiki for Vauxhall and the Russian Connection. (1.1 in the index)
Here's the section in question: There are competing theories as to why the Russian word for a railway station is Вокзал (vokzal), which coincides with the canonical 19th century transliteration of "Vauxhall". It has long been suggested that a Russian delegation visited the area to inspect the construction of the London and South Western Railway in 1840, and mistook the name for a generic title of the building type. This was further embellished into a story that the Tsar Nicholas I of Russia, visiting London in 1844, was taken to see the trains at Vauxhall and made the same mistake. However, the L&SWR's original railway terminus and the associated railway yards were always better known as Nine Elms. A more likely explanation is that the first Russian railway, constructed in 1837, ran from Saint Petersburg via Tsarskoye Selo to Pavlovsk, where extensive Pleasure Gardens had earlier been established. In 1838 a music and entertainment pavilion was constructed at the railway terminus. This pavilion was called the Vokzal in homage to the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens in London. The name soon came to be applied to the station itself, which was the gateway that most visitors used to enter the gardens. It later came to mean any substantial railway station building (a different Russian word, stantsiya, is used for minor stations). The word "voksal" (воксал) has been known in Russian language in the meaning of "amusement park" long before the 1840s and may be found, e.g., in the poetry of Aleksandr Pushkin: На гуляньях иль в воксалах / Легким зефиром летал (To Natalie (1813): "At ftes and in voksals, /I've been flitting like a gentle Zephyrus" [here "Zephyrus" is an allegory of a gentle, warm and pleasant wind ]) According to Vasmer, the word is first attested in the Saint Petersburg Vedomosti for 1777 in the form фоксал, which may reflect an earlier English spelling, Faukeshall. |
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bayard(d) |
Re: Vauxhall | ||
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Posts: 53 (02/05/07 13:03:46) |
Thanks for that reply, aldi. Many years ago, I used to commute through Vauxhall station and wonder how such an unprepossessing structure had given its name to all stations in Russia. Now I know it didn't.
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. |
Re: Vauxhall | ||
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Posts: 1376 (02/05/07 13:58:27) |
it's easy to get an idea back-to-front, or inside-out (unless of course, one is given to lateral thinking). I had somehow got hold of the notion that the Russian word for a pencil ("karandash") derived from the name of the famous (brilliant, anglophobic, anti-semitic, anti-just-about-everything) French cartoonist Caran d'Ache. This thread got me thinking (for a change), and after a little searching with the help of Wikipedia, I found out that the exact opposite is [probably] true :
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caran_d%27Ache (Edited to replace certainty with probability) |
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BlackGrey |
Re: Vauxhall | ||
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Posts: 180 (02/05/07 16:01:29) |
Thanks for this little gem!
Did a couple of years of evening school Russian and was always convinced the Russians had pinched the name from the times the Dutch Navy was important in Russia. In Dutch, "wachtzaal" could mean 'waiting room' (in my imagination! It's more usually called 'wachtruimte'). -- POP -- Sound of another illusory bubble bursting in head :) |
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language hat |
Re: Vauxhall | ||
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Posts: 2772 (02/06/07 08:58:48) |
I found out that the exact opposite is [probably] true[...]
(Edited to replace certainty with probability) I'm not sure why you made the edit, since the article is unambiguous: Quote: At any rate, even if you have mental reservations about where he got his moniker, there is no possibility whatever that it inspired the Russian word! |
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. |
Re: Vauxhall | ||
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Posts: 1376 (02/06/07 12:22:02) |
i added the edit, not because i don't believe the story (I do --- every word), but as a concession to several posters on this site, who have expressed doubts about the credibility of many of the statements made on Wikipedia, and have questioned the credentials of some of those who contribute to it. The concession was made in a moment of moral frailty (we're all only human --- some of my ancestors, very fortunately for me, accepted baptism as a cooler lifestyle than being broiled alive). Fortified by lh's moral support, i now retract my reservations. It's all true! bring on the faggots! (no, I'm not bigoted --- just old-fashioned about the way i choose my words).
'-) (and as far as I'm concerned, Wikipedia --- credible or not --- is a splendid human achievement, a brightly shining beacon of enlightenment in a world where the shadows are growing longer and darker) |
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DaveWilton |
Re: Vauxhall | ||
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Posts: 7490 (02/06/07 13:20:18) Administrator |
Wikipedia is also rising in my opinion. They've made changes to their system in recent months that significantly improves their credibility. They now caveat articles that are subject to distortion and individual claims of fact are often tagged "Citation Needed."
I've gone from extreme skepticality about the viability of the Wikipedia concept to acceptance that it is useful for certain classes of knowledge to acceptance that it is as accurate as other general knowledge references. Wiktionary, however, remains complete crap. |
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bayard(d) |
Re: Vauxhall | ||
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Posts: 53 (02/06/07 14:04:36) |
Two questions: Firstly, can anyone think of another example of a word that has acquired its meaning through physical proximity, like voksal. I am sure there must be others. Secondly, Dave, why do you say that Wiktionary is crap? (I'm not defending it, just wondering what's wrong with it).
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kurwamac |
Re: Vauxhall | ||
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Posts: 1210 (02/06/07 15:57:15) |
So many people are under the impression that the iconic London clock tower is called Big Ben that I suppose it more or less is, but it's properly the name of the largest bell.
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DaveWilton |
Re: Vauxhall | ||
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Posts: 7490 (02/07/07 07:50:17) Administrator |
Wiktionary is very problematic because, unlike writing a general encyclopedia, lexicography is a very skilled discipline. It takes considerable training and experience to accurately condense a word's usage and history into a few lines. Even I don't pretend to be able to do it at a professional level.
I just looked up a few words. It only took me until the third word, "nice," to find an incorrect etymology. The fourth word I looked up, "wog," lumps unrelated words with the same spelling into a single entry, implying that they're related. I could go on. At least they've changed the practice (once automatic for a Wiki) of capitalizing the header word, whether or not it's a proper noun. |
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DaveWilton |
Re: Vauxhall | ||
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Posts: 7490 (02/07/07 12:17:12) Administrator |
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. |
Re: Meaning acquired through physical proximity | ||
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Posts: 1376 (02/07/07 15:02:26) |
A lighthouse is called in French phare, Spanish and Italian faro, and similar names in several other European languages. All these names derive from the island of Pharos, beside Alexandria in Egypt. In the third century B.C., a lighthouse was built on the island by order of King Ptolemy I. It was such a spectacular building that it was reckoned by the ancients as one of the seven wonders of the world. There may have been other names for lighthouses before that, but quite soon lighthouses anywhere in the ancient world were called "Pharos", and have been so called in many countries, and many languages, ever since. But the name antedates the lighthouse itself, and was originally the name of the island.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lighthouse_of_Alexandria (edited to alter heading) |
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bayard(d) |
Re: Meaning acquired through physical proximity | ||
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Posts: 53 (02/10/07 06:30:14) |
Thanks, Lionello, that was the sort of thing I was struggling to think of...
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Victorine |
Vokzal | ||
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Posts: 11 (02/19/07 00:30:31) |
just wanted to add
in Russian/Ukrainian not only railway stations are called vokzals, but bus stations too. and as for the word 'fara' - in Russian/Ukrainian it doesn't mean 'lighthouse' (mayak in Russian/Ukrainian), but the meaning of 'fara' is 'headlamp or headlight' |
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. |
Re: Vokzal | ||
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Posts: 1376 (02/19/07 07:58:59) |
Faro means automobile headlamp in Spanish, too, Victorine. And in the same language, farol means just about any enclosed, bright lantern. The light from King Ptolemy's building shines a long way.
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kurwamac |
Re: Vokzal | ||
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Posts: 1210 (02/20/07 16:01:44) |
As does phare in French.
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