Driving back home over the weekend, I nearly caused an accident, laughing while listening to this gem of a true story from the NPR show, "Wait, wait, don't tell me!":
Fed up residents of an Austrian village whose name in English is the gerund form of an obscenity beginning with 'F' and used to depict what happens when two people really, really love each other, and cannot be broadcast, are being offered a helping hand by their German neighbors, a town whose name starts with 'W' and ends with 'K' and is a common British vulgarism describing the act of pleasuring oneself.
The locals of when-two-people-really-love-each-other are sick of English-speaking tourists taking lewd pictures of themselves in front of town signs. Tourism officials in pleasuring-oneself are urging the residents of when-two-people-really-love-each-other to follow their lead and cash in on their name. ... Summer visitors hike up pleasuring-oneself mountain and purchase a large array of pleasuring-oneself souvenirs and postcards.
But the mayor of when-two-people-really-love-each-other is having none of it. "We don't find it funny, and just want to live in peace," he says, and possibly wishes that the dirty-minded tourists would just go when-two-people-really-love-each-other themselves. - Tom Bodett
After getting home, I went online to see if this was an elaborate joke, but found these two entries instead.
Fucking is a town in Austria, four km east of the German border. And
Wank really is a town in Germany.
I started digging and soon found two other towns with amusing names:
Petting, also in Germany, and
Dildo, in Canada.
I then went to the
Fucking newspaper website and found these stories they had published (translated from German):
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From a story about the new parking rules on Missionarstrasse (Missionary Street, their main road): "The parking spots on Missionarstrasse will be reserved for residents of our town only. Non-Fucking residents will be towed."
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From a story about a dog show, titled "Local mutts do good": "Two Fucking dogs, Hornig and Teebeutel, took the first and second places in the 69th Annual West Austrian Dog Show. Unfortunately, their owners have already decided to sell them to a Petting zoo, so alas, their Fucking days are numbered."
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From an interview with a woman who had recently moved to town: "I used to be a Wanker, but I have now moved to Fucking and love it!" Her husband agreed, "Ja, Wank is good, Petting is better, but Fucking is the best!"
Links
1.
"Wait, wait, don't tell me!"
