OPINION Phillip Adams | January 13, 2007 Article from: The Australian
A FEW years back the Reverend Fred Nile drew to my attention the fact that certain dictionaries contain dirty words, like titty and bottom. Apprenticed by Fred as a trainee moral custodian, I've since joined in many an Eliot Ness-ish raid on bookshops, burning any copies of the Oxford, Macquarie or Collins we can lay our hands on. We also sneak into libraries and tear out offending pages. Now we've turned our attention to maps. Bearing the weight of the world on our shoulders like Atlases, Fred and I now burn atlases. Because they're full of filth. Readers may recall my North American examples a few months back. The US might be the land of the free and the home of the brave, but its landscape is littered with the lewd and the lubricious – with towns called Dildo or Intercourse and any number of mountains with mammiferous or phallic names.
As Fred says, the US is off to a bad start with its famous Route 66, which is a disgrace, the word suggestive of fornication while the number approaches the satanic. Little wonder there are so many obscene road movies and books, like that effort of Jack Kerouac's.
But is Australia any better? Readers may recall me asking them to identify our prurient places and tawdry towns – our pornographic place names. I'm proud to say that hundreds rallied to the cause. So now, even as you read this column, Fred and I are "on the road", chopping down offending signs whilst demanding errant councils rechristen their suggestive townships.
Here are some awful examples provided by outraged correspondents.
Black Butt, near Kingaroy. Sheba's Breasts, near Chillagoe. Tellem Buggerem Close, a road in Rubyvale, apparently named in response to the local authority's unpopular habit of increasing rates. Black Charlie's Opening, in Tasmania. Dickwood Drive in Darwin (apparently it runs into Fanny Bay), and Bowelling in Western Australia – "but there's a worse name for those who are just passing through", warns a reader. Pakenham Upper in Victoria was much complained about in letters and emails. As were Mount Buggery and Mount Boobyalla – the latter peak next to the Knobs!
Slap-Arse Row near the township of Aldinga, South Australia, recently renamed (praise the Lord) Hele Street, after Sir Ivor Hele. And, of course, Rooty Hill in NSW.
Even worse, Cyril Street, Camp Hill, Titty Bong near Swan Hill and Mount Mee, near Caboolture. Not to mention Mount Meharry in the Hamersley Range and Mount Little Dick, just up the road from Bairnsdale. What is it about mountains?
Innaloo in WA, and East Intercourse Island near Dampier. Bum Bum Creek, on the New England Highway – and Buggery Hut, not far from where the Murrumbidgee joins the Murray. "There's more than a hint that the name derives from a lonely shepherd with his flock," writes the reader who supplied that one.
Horny Point, Shag Cove and Fanny Point, all near Port Lincoln. Split Arse Rock near Cape Donnington. And Cockburn in metropolitan Perth – "You get an unsettling feeling you might have thrown one too many snags on the barbecue after a skinny-dip."
John and Peter in Daisydale tell of Lake Fanny, Boomers Bottom, Robbins Passage and Mouldy Hole – all in Tasmania, as is Queenstown (Fred is furious!), while Brian Robb points to a map of lakes and creeks around Cairns. "One was called Wherethefuckarewe."
Rose Mackenzie writes of a Tsipura Drive at Burleigh Heads – Ar U Pist spelled backwards. And there's a lovely story about the "days when place-names were made of cut-out letters fixed to a flat plate", from a reader who drove through Pichi Richi Pass between Port Augusta and Quorn in South Australia and saw that "some bright spark had changed the sign to Itchi Arse".
Fred was also concerned to learn, from Wendy Tonkes, of a Bulcock Street near Dicky Beach, close by Lower Gay Terrace and Upper Gay Terrace. Shame on you, Caloundra!
I'd like to thank the hundreds who alerted Fred and I to these vile toponyms. While they'll get their rewards in heaven, the prize – a warmly inscribed copy of my recent book, Adams' Ark – goes to Guy Chester, for Yorkeys Knob near Cairns.
Many pointed to the place, but Guy told the wonderful story of Yorkey, the fisherman who lived there and lost his arm while using dynamite instead of a net or line. "How he sailed his little sloop overnight to Cairns without complete blood loss remains a mystery to this day."
Yorkey also established a beche-de-mer industry – "dried sea cucumber was considered an aphrodisiac by the then plentiful Chinese in Cairns". Guy says there have been many attempts by developers to rename "the Knob", but you can still buy a T-shirt that boasts: "Yorkeys Knob – bigger than Moby's dick."
