I know Ilf and Petrov beat us to it by almost a century, but really, America, what’s up with your naming practices? I don’t mean to be disrespectful, (though that is something I really can’t avoid now, can I?) but show some originality.
So far we’ve come through at least a few Berlins and a Brooklyn far, far from New York City. We’ve cycled through Marseilles, as well as Peru and Ottawa. Even Moscow wasn’t that far of our route.
And these places never really live up their grandiose names. So why bother, really? Plus it’s so much more interesting to ride through a town called Muscatine anyway!
So please, I don’t mean to be rude, but a little bit of creativity couldn’t hurt!
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You can check out the excellent book I was referring to at the beginning of my rant. The duo behind it raises the same criticism as I did. But way ahead of me and in way more eloquent words. Here’s the link:
https://www.papress.com/html/book.details.page.tpl?isbn=9781568986005