Hacker News Reader

Fun fact: la brea means "the tar", so the La Brea Tar Pits literally translates to "the the tar tar pits".

Another joins the ranks of Chai Tea, Naan Bread, and Lake Michigan :D

The others I knew but Lake Michigan I did not, which prompted me to look it up:

> The name derives from a gallicized variant of the original Ojibwe word ᒥᓯᑲᒥ (mishigami),[c] meaning "large water" or "large lake".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan

TIL. To be fair, there is a whole landmass right next to that mishigami sharing a name we do need to distinguish it from.

It's kind of funny how much the sounds of mishigami feel like they could equally have come from Hebrew or Japanese. Interesting overlap of mouth-feel.

To be fair, 'naan bread' is like 'toona fish' or 'feta cheese' which AmE does in English anyway.

Related fun fact: The actual tar pits, and the art museum adjacent to it, are basically at the intersection of La Brea Blvd. and La Cienega Blvd., which translates to:

A main tourist attraction of LA is at the intersection of Tar Pits Blvd. and Swamp Blvd.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com