Date: Fri, 2 Jan 1998 15:16:12 -0500 From: "Frank R. Abate" Subject: PODUNK Let me weigh in with some evidence on Podunk: The Index volume to the Omni Gazetteer lists placenames with Podunk in 7 states: CT, MA, ME, MI, NY, UT, VT. There are populated places or "locales" (such are often neighborhood name= s) in CT, MA, MI, NY, VT. MA has a P Cemetery and a P Pond. In CT, aside from a P River, there is a P Pond, and I have first-hand knowledge of a residential part of a shoreline town, Guilford (S of Hartford about 35 miles), which uses this name. There is a P Road in Guilford. A look in one of the "national yellow pages" CD-ROMs may well reveal more= , though the pejorative use of the name now probably limits its use. George Stewart's "Names on the Land", p. 338, says: "In 1846 a series of humorous magazine articles used the title _Letters from Podunk,_ and the name became established as the joking equivalent of an insignificant, backward village. In time it sprouted a variant, Squeedunk." Frank Abate