So I don’t know how or why, probably genetics has a lot to do with it, I take a light-hearted approach to life and look to find the humor in things or just make up the humor. Peter Holthe, the driving force that made FOCM happen, called me irreverent. Having just looked it up, it means: showing a lack of respect for people or things that are generally taken seriously. I don’t intend to show a lack of respect but I like humor more than seriousness. Of course there’s a time and a place for both. But funny observations are always just under the serious stuff for me.

So my twin brother recently must have been surfing the web, maybe Wikipedia and spent time on the origin of the names of a couple of America’s states: Idaho and Texas. Below will be what he wrote and what I replied with.

My brother sent this: The name “Idaho” has no translation at all because it’s entirely made up. In an early form of marketing that would make these modern-day businesses proud, the name was suggested by a local leader in 1860 who claimed the word “Idaho” was a Native American word for “gem of the mountains.” Later that same year, gold was discovered in the Clearwater area, proving his invented name wasn’t far off base.

To which I replied: That’s close to accurate.  It was made up, but it was “Idano” and a typesetting issue on the old printing press mistakenly set the n as an h.  Quite easy to do as they are close to each other. The name “Idano” was because when others heading west asked the people in what is now Idaho, why they stopped there and didn’t go any further, their answer was “idano”.

Then he sent this about Texas: Like the Dakotas, Texas was named with friendship in mind. Texas is a variant of a word (Teysha) used by some Native Americans to refer to friends or allies. It has many different spellings, including “Texias,” “Tejas,” and “Teysas.”

To which I replied: A variant book of name origins reveals this: Like the Carolinas, Texas was named after a particular member of the royal family, albeit, for Texas, it was a lesser known Earl of a small, rural Scottish Isle.  His name was Tex, Earl of the Isle of Mull.  Tex was rather eccentric and thought being Earl meant he was King of his Isle.  When people would see something new or different on the isle, they’d ask “whose is that?” The answer was always “it’s Tex’s”.  Tex did little actual work and spent a lot of time thinking – coincidentally Tex is the reason that to “mull” it over means to think on something.  Tex’s incompetency lead to his eventual over throw and he was sent to the new colonies. He eventually settled in what is now Odessa. He got very active in the public square where his eccentricities and overblown ego eventually resulted in the state being named Texas.