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toxicatedscientist t1_iz0zspp wrote

Sahara means desert, so if there's a desert desert then there's probably a sheep sheep, too

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Caelinus t1_iz172do wrote

Panera means "Bread Basket," so Panera Bread is "Bread Basket Bread" which is a silly name.

Unrelated, but the funniest company name to me is still Schlecht Construction as Schlecht is one of the German words for "bad" in the objective sense. (as opposed to "feeling bad.")

So the name of the company is "Bad Construction" or just as accurately "Unskilled Construction" or "Bad Quality Construction." I know that it is probably just a last name, but it makes me laugh every time I see their logo.

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vesuvisian t1_iz30zc8 wrote

Panera Bread could be justified as meaning “bread from the bread basket.”

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Caelinus t1_iz33ck7 wrote

It can be parsed that way in English, but essentially no one would form and use that sentence. The only way it would work is if the "breadbasket" in some way did something special to bread aside from containing it. So it would be possible say that the store is called "Breadbasket" and it serves bread from itself, but then its name would just be Panera.

To use that construction with its actual name being "Panera Bread" you would need to call it Panera Bread Bread, or Breadbasket Bread Bread.

To me it seems pretty clear that they wanted to name themselves Panera after changing their name from Au Bon Pain, and realized that they might have marketing issues as most people would not immediately know what either of those names meant. So they just tacked bread on the end of their new name to make it obvious what their specialty was.

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welshmanec2 t1_iz1rdin wrote

Half the rivers in this country translate as river river. Folk used to be just as unimaginative as they are today.

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Weaselpuss t1_iz130uo wrote

Happens a lot. In fact there’s a lot of rivers in England that are called “river river” because the Roman’s didn’t understand that the natives were just telling them their word for river and not the actual name.

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TheKaptinKirk t1_iz18q9y wrote

Pendle Hill (Hill Hill Hill), Mekong River (River river river)

List of Tautological Place Names

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TristesteLivet t1_iz18zhp wrote

Ignoring the fact that soay sounds almost like the Norwegian word for sleep, sau, soay also sounds like what you would call a female sheep, "søye".

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psycho202 t1_iz25ayg wrote

which is also funnily close to the dutch word for boring, "saai", which in flemish dialects is pronounced pretty similar to "soay".

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model563 t1_iz19gga wrote

There's a geyser in Iceland called "Geysir", but it's just named once. All others are just named after it.

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catdoctor t1_iz1u7z1 wrote

Well, there is a Loch Lochy in Scotland, and a Dunne Castle (dunne means castle), so why not?

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