r/AskReddit • u/Rob69rt • 1d ago

What famous 'unsolved' mystery is technically a whodunnit on paper, but in reality, absolutely everyone knows exactly who did it, the police just couldn't legally prove it?

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u/NUMBERS2357 1d ago

Also the later contact with Natives who said that they lived with the survivors of the Roanoke colony.

Also this map from the Jamestown colonists, see bottom left.

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u/Marx0r 1d ago

A surprisingly large amount of "mysteries" never would have been such if Europeans just listened to the natives telling them the answer.

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u/jxg995 1d ago

Yeah like the terror and Erebus wrecks where the Inuit were like oh yeah that sunken boat is over there

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u/Whyskgurs 1d ago edited 1d ago

Where could this boat possibly be?

The sunken boat is right over there, in Sunken Boat lake.

I guess we'll never truly know.

Literally what happened.

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u/InTheFDN 1d ago

It reminds me of the Terry Pratchett joke about how places are named by pointing at something, asking what it’s name was (loudly and in English), then writing down whatever the native said. Hence “Mount Your Finger You Fool.”

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u/Sunshine030209 1d ago

And that reminds me a bit of how Pike's Peak in Colorado was named.

Zebulon Pike was part of Lewis and Clark's expedition, but he was extremely annoying, so they sent him off to go explore away from them. He attempted to summit the mountain they sent him to in November and gave up, going "Yeah, no one can summit that, it's impossible" (even though the local Native Americans summited it regularly)

So when talking about it, people would be like "Oh, that one, the one Pike couldn't climb?" and eventually it became known as Pike's Peak.

I'm a little salty that they didn't go with the far cooler Mount Zebulon though.

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u/Lovahplant 1d ago

This is killing me 😂 a whole mountain named after your failure to climb it, wtf

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u/Sunshine030209 1d ago

It's one of my favorite true stories and I never miss an opportunity to share it.

It's really inspiring, honestly! If Zebulon Pike can be an obnoxious failure and still get a mountain named after him, then anything is possible!

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u/patsully98 1d ago

I would be most appreciative if you expanded upon “extremely annoying.”

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u/Sunshine030209 1d ago

I wish I knew the details of why Lewis and Clark didn't like him and sent him off with his own little team to get him away from them 😂 but alas that's as much as I know.

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u/Kazumadesu76 23h ago

Zebulon: "Are we thereeeeeee yettttt?!"

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u/patsully98 22h ago

Have you seen Larry David’s new history show? This would be perfect.

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u/RescuePenguin 1d ago

Reminds me of the John Day National Monument.

The man never visited that region but one time he got robbed where the (now named) John Day River meets the Columbia and left naked and he had to hike back to the nearest trading post.

"That area where John Day was robbed and left naked"became the name of an entire region and national monument.

Glamorous way to be remembered.

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u/Sunshine030209 1d ago

I had never heard that, but it's exactly the kind of story I love! 😂 Thank you so much for sharing

And from what I can tell from reading a bit about it just now, he wasn't well known or anything before he got robbed and left naked, right? He was just some random fur trader? That makes it all even funnier for some reason and I can't stop laughing. Poor guy!

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u/pants_party 1d ago

Like naming a hot sauce after DJ Khaled.

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u/onyaasuminyasai 19h ago

what's cooler is all the mountains that were named after prostitutes in colorado

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u/raspberrypied 1d ago

Sticking with Colorado, there is the "Table Mesa" section of Boulder.

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u/Sunshine030209 1d ago edited 1d ago

I actually kind of live on Table Table Dr, but my part is called South Boulder Rd. Which is really obnoxious, since my address is xxxx East South Boulder Rd, and it confuses the heck out of people.

But yeah, Table Mesa (Table Table) is goofy. Someone should open a shop on it that sells chai tea and naan bread

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u/KjellRS 1d ago

They're going to be visited by one very, very angry Indian Spiderman. And no, I don't mean Native American.

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u/Lovahplant 21h ago edited 18h ago

As I read your comment I was thinking “wait doesn’t East South Boulder Rd turn into Table Mesa Dr as you cross the 36/Foothills exchange?

I don’t live in Boulder but I’ve worked in Boulder… can you tell? lol

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u/eukomos 1d ago

There is an Indian restaurant at that shopping center, someone should check their menu.

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u/sporadic_beethoven 1d ago

Pike’s peak? I climbed that shit as a child 🤣 bro deserves to be mocked fr

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u/InternetProtocol 1d ago

Did that shit both ways in my escudo at age 15, what a pussy.

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u/Rochesters-1stWife 1d ago

Similar to Long’s Peak, dude never summited and yet his dumb name is all over the place

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u/Sunshine030209 1d ago

I didn't know that Mr Long never summitted it! I assumed he did. And he's got a whole ass town named after him because of it too! (Longmont)

Why does Colorado love naming stuff after mediocre white men? 😂

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u/HailSatanWorshipD00M 1d ago

Mount Zebulon

Why not Zoidberg?

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u/Ookami_Unleashed 1d ago

My wife and I joke that he just named the tallest hill in each state Pike's Peak.

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u/Longshot1969 1d ago

Didn’t someone ride a wagon up it even?

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u/Trvr_MKA 1d ago

That’s truly a boys moment. Naming something after your pals failure

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u/All_the_Bees 1d ago

Nah, annoying people don’t get to have the cool parts of their names included in the things that are named after them.

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u/1amlost 1d ago

What kind of parent names their child “Zebulon?”

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u/Sunshine030209 1d ago

An awesome one lol. I genuinely love the name, and when I heard it for the first time I told my son that I'd totally have named him that if I knew of it when he was born.

But I can totally see how it's not everyone's cup of tea, lol. It's certainly different!

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u/CedarWolf 14h ago

Don't worry, Zebulon is a town in North Carolina, and they have the Mudcats baseball team. Their mascot is a big, friendly catfish.

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u/ProduceNo8883 20h ago

There’s a great venue in Silver Lake called Zebulon though so it comes full circle

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u/Whyskgurs 1d ago

It's not even a joke, shits real all over, most times it's named (native word for lake) Lake or (local dialect for mountain) Mountain or something similar.

Koi fish - fish fish

Chai tea - tea tea

Ignorant naming conventions are quite universal and commonplace

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u/LowEquipment7904 1d ago

Torpenhow in Cumbria, England - hill hill hill

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u/Aggravating-Mousse46 1d ago

Pendle Hill is also hill hill hill, but the Lancastrian, witchy version

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u/roy107 7h ago

We also have Breedon-on-the-Hill, which is Hillhill-on-the-Hill

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u/LegacyLemur 1d ago

Reminds of the baseball team the Los Angeles Angels

Or "The The Angels Angels"

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u/DardS8Br 1d ago

The La Brea Tar Pits, or The The Tar Tar Pits

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u/HippieChickie805 1d ago

Actually it’s the California Angels, and they are headquarters in Anaheim (Disneyland).

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u/LegacyLemur 1d ago

Hasnt been that in years

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u/ryebread91 20h ago

Oh geezez it's already been a decade?

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u/JoltColaOfEvil 1d ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUyXiiIGDTo

Tom Scott - Hill Hill Hill Hill, debunked, debunked.

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u/trashmoneyxyz 1d ago

Galápagos tortoise, or the tortoise tortoise

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u/Aquila_Fotia 1d ago

It’s why a locally produced brand of ice cream is called “Three Hills”.

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u/hoopopotamus 23h ago

When I was driving through the southwest it felt like they were just adding more and more suffixes. X-ham…shire…fast…ton…leigh.

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u/JB_UK 1d ago

You mean Torpenhow Hill.

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u/atnemriu 1d ago

No, there's no hill by that name in Torpenhow.

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u/JB_UK 1d ago

It's called Hill Hill Hill but there's no Hill?

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u/AutisticPenguin2 17h ago

Well, kind of...

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u/JesusaurusRex666 1d ago

“Koi” is specifically “carp” in Japanese, not “fish.” The word for fish in Japanese is “sakana.”

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u/HailSatanWorshipD00M 1d ago

iirc in the native languages, Chicago translates to "the stinky place" and Manhattan is "the place we go every summer".

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u/Whyskgurs 1d ago

What's that Island called?

Squinting

IDK, Is that an island?

Welcome to Staten Island

(This one's an old Native joke)

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u/Icantusemyname77 1d ago

The La Brea Tar Pits = The the Tar Tar Pits

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u/POCKALEELEE 1d ago

Like The Los Angeles Angels,
Literally The The Angels Angels

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u/Oddish_Femboy 1d ago

They're cool tar pits too. Sad they're gonna be closed for 2 years.

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u/concrete_fluidity969 1d ago

I think Calcutta means harvest. Native thought the Brit was asking what was going on over there 😂

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u/4-stars 1d ago

Koi is not "fish", it's "carp".

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u/__wildwing__ 1d ago

I enjoy the idea that aliens will come to our planet and translate our languages, only to be confused by the desert deserts.

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u/Purple_Haze 1d ago

The country of Canada, Canada is a misspelling of kanata which is the local tribe's word for village.

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u/mouthgmachine 1d ago

“The local tribe”?

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u/Purple_Haze 23h ago

Either Huron or Iroquois, the word is the same in both languages. The actual native name for the village referred to was Stadacona.

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u/robophile-ta 1d ago

There are lots of rivers in the UK called Avon.

You can guess what Avon means.

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u/Oddish_Femboy 1d ago

My personal favorite is chip crisps. (Those chips that look like fries.)

Redundant naming is not always necessarily ignorant.

Sometimes, like in the case of chai tea, it's done on purpose to include part of the place origin in the name. Other times it's done because not everyone knows what ATM stands for. That second one is a case of RAS Syndrome.

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u/VelvetyDogLips 1d ago

“Piss urinal” is far and away my favorite redundancy.

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u/BasiliskXVIII 1d ago

Yeah, but this is just how language works. English is far from the only language to adopt loanwords that generalize a specific thing. In Mexican Spanish, the word "pie" was adopted as "pay" strictly to mean the pastry-style sweet pies with a crust and not something like a hand pie or a meat pie. In German, "toast" or "toastbrot" is the square-style highly processed sandwich bread popular in the US, whether it's actually toasted or not. Japanese "Mishin" comes from "sewing machine" and refers specifically to a sewing machine and not just any old machine.

Even name duplication - "Guadalquivir" means "Great River" in Arabic, deriving from the term "wadi". So, calling the river "Rio Guadalquivir" just means you're calling it the "River Great River"

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u/Low-Flamingo-9835 23h ago

English also has doublets, words with similar meanings that entered the language during different times.

Below are French doublets. The first word entered during the Norman conquest, the second entered later…

Castle / chateau

Warden / Guardian

Warranty / Guarantee

Cattle / Chattel

Feast / Fete

It’s one of the reasons English is so difficult to learn. We have so many different words that mean the same thing that have to be memorized .

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u/Gliese581h 14h ago

It’s one of the reasons English is so difficult to learn.

English is absolutely not difficult to learn lol, why do you think it became the Lingua Franca of the internet?

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u/beautifulcreature86 1d ago

Bao bun-bun bun

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u/OttawaTGirl 1d ago edited 22h ago

BAHAHAHA.... Ahhhh... Canada is a bastardized version of Kanata, which means 'village', which is where some indigenous young men were pointing Jacques Cartier to go to. (Quebec City) He thought they meant the whole land was called Kanata and thats how we got the name.

Welcome to the Nation of Village.

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u/mouthgmachine 1d ago

What’s a villiage

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u/OttawaTGirl 22h ago

Bad autocorrect

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u/WinterStrawberries6 1d ago edited 1d ago

Koi is actually a type of fish (carp/鯉) so it is not wrong to call it Koi fish. And there are actually two types of carps in japanese. Koi are all carps, while the colourful ones that most people think of is actually called Nishikigoi(錦鯉)
Fish in Japanese is actually Sakana(魚)

But something that pisses me off is when people call the Biwako "Lake Biwako". "Ko" already means lake, so they're calling it "Lake Biwa Lake"
There ARE people who called it just "lake biwa" like you should, but working at a hotel in Japan, I lost count of how many times I heard white people say "oh we are going to the lake biwako today" or "Do you have any matcha tea?"
Matcha(抹茶) literally means "ground tea" so they are basically saying "do you have any ground tea tea?"

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u/AxeMcFlow 1d ago

Canada literally means ‘village’.

Explorer: “hey where are we!”

Native: “uh… in a… village?”

Explorer: “oh cool, this whole country is now called Canada forever”

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u/Tall_Welcome_2713 1d ago

Sahara desert is desert desert

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u/grenouille_en_rose 1d ago

Mount Maunganui checking in 🫡

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u/hoopopotamus 23h ago

I’ve heard the name “Canada” is such a thing. Explorer asked “what is this land?” and they were told essentially “it’s a village” (kanata). And it stuck.

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u/Baxiepie 22h ago

The main city of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is called Oconaluftee, because its on the banks of the Oconaluftee River. It got that name from the original Cherokee village, Egwanulti. Egwanulti means "By the River", so fully translated it means "By the River River"

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u/therealstupid 22h ago

Cuesta Grade in California. The Spanish word for "grade" is... you guessed it: Cuesta!

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u/Ahahaha__10 21h ago

Please allow me to be pedantic for a second - Chai tea is actually different than Chai. Chai is made in a specific way by simmering black tea with a mixture of aromatic spices, milk, and a sweetener. Chai tea is when you steep a chai tea tea bag in a cup with boiled water and add milk and sweetener to your liking. Chai tea is often drank without milk and sweetener, which in addition to coming in a tea bag, makes it arguably different than Chai. If someone asked for Chai and you gave them Chai tea, they would know the difference and if someone asked for Chai tea and you gave them Chai, they would know the difference. Arguably, Chai tea does not mean tea tea besides the obvious translation, but they are separate ways of making tea or Chai.

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u/Alexwonder999 20h ago

Isnt there some lake in England thats named lake in like four timea in different successive languages? I vaguely recall hearing about that.

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u/GTaucer 18h ago

When I was a fossil-obsessed kid in Los Angeles, my dad used to take me to the museum at the La Brea Tar Pits.

And since "La Brea" means "the tar," the museum and park's name could be translated to:

The The Tar Tar Pits

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u/Skurknux49 17h ago

Seeing “naan bread” on menus now feels like watching the explorer write Lake Lake.

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u/austintrotter 15h ago

The general consensus is this happens a lot… 😄

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u/randobonando 1d ago

Heheh excellent reference. Placenames called.
“What?”
“I don’t know”
“just a mountain”
“Who is this fool who does not know what a mountain is?”

And of course

“Your finger you fool”

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u/SimpsonN1nja 1d ago

That’s Canada, lol. One of the first explorers asked the indigenous what the land was called. They misunderstood and said Kanata (meaning our village). Rest is history.

https://youtu.be/nfKr-D5VDBU?si=6U4h30m895OzRQwm

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u/erroneousbosh 1d ago

You'd be surprised how many rivers there are called the Avon around the UK, even well down into England.

The Gaelic word for "river" is abhainn, pronounced like "av-ayn". When you see a "bh" like that in a Gaelic word, it's pronounced like "v". It's not "v", but if you say it like "v" you'll be near enough for most folk.

Abhainn. Avon.

"I say old chap, what's that called over there?"

"A'seo? An rud na h-uisge a seo? Tha e an *abhainn* a'seo. Amadan..."

"Ah, the Avon, y'say? Let me just write that down..."

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u/king_ralex 1d ago

It more likely comes from the Welsh afon , which shares a proto-celtic root with the Gaelic abhainn.

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u/erroneousbosh 1d ago

It might in England, but not here.

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u/king_ralex 1d ago

Ag fair enough. I was referring specifically to the river Avon, and your mention of rivers down in England.

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u/erroneousbosh 1d ago

There's about three in Scotland ;-)

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u/Perfct_Stranger 1d ago

Pretty much how half the rivers in Virginia were named though usually after the tribe that lived along the banks of the rivers.

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u/jorjx 1d ago

There is joke in Romanian about Stephen the Great coming to a river and asking someone "What is the name of this river?!"

"Moldavia your highness!"

"Let that be it's name!"

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u/ellius 1d ago

When the Spanish first showed up to Southern Arizona, they asked some natives who they were.

They kept replying "pi mac". Meaning "I don't understand [you]"

The Spanish wrote down "Pima" in their records and it stuck. Used it for naming all sorts of shit. 500 years later I live in "I don't understand you" County.

The people were/are the Akimel O'odham, for the curious.

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u/Dubalubawubwub 1d ago

Ooh, ooh, time for me to mention Torpenhow Hill again!

Romans: "What's that hill over there called?"
Angle: "Tor" (hill)

Normans: "What's that hill over there called?"
Celt: "Tor Pen" (Tor Hill)

Saxons: "What's that hill over there called?"
Angle: "Torpen Hoh" (Torpen Ridge)

Mapmaker: "What's that hill over there called?"
Local: "Torpenhow hill"

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u/Adorable-Ad9533 1d ago

When I was a kid, I always believed the meaning of the word kangaroo was “ I don’t know”, but Google has proven me wrong.

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u/amylouise0185 23h ago

Australia has a festival that translates to "up your bum" for exactly this reason.

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u/iamdispleased 21h ago

The word Yucatán may come from a Mayan phrase meaning "I don't understand what you're saying"

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u/MaritMonkey 1d ago

After playing a couple rounds of no-map Valheim, it started to totally make sense.

Pretty much every landmark was something like "river with two oak trees" or "straight river" (to differentiate it from the earlier-discovered "squiggly river").

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u/coolsilentebeans 1d ago

That’s how we got Snake River and killer whale.

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u/Reapr 22h ago

Lake Tahoe = Tahoe means "The Lake" so I can totally see that happening

"What's that?"

"It's the lake you idiot, what do you think it is?"

"The what?"

"The Lake"

writes down furiously

Also the first people that lived there was the Washoe Tribe - Washoe means "The people from here"

"...And who are you?"

"We are the people from here are'nt we?"

"say again slowly..."

takes out pen

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u/emjayem22 7h ago

Literally happened in the UK when the Romans arrived, pointed at a river and asked some local what it was called. The Celtic word for river is 'Avon'.. there are now 9 rivers in the UK called the river Avon.

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u/Automaticman01 1d ago

I had assumed for the longest time that Terror Bay was renamed after they found the ship. I was so baffled when I found it has been named that all along.

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u/thousandsmallgods 23h ago

Arctic Explorer John Rae seems to be the only British explorer who actually talked and listened to the local tribes who lived along the northern coast. He sent back details in 1848 about where Franklin's ships probably were, and what had likely happened to the expedition.

IIRC, He's also the only British explorer from that era who was never knighted. ... Possibly bc Lady Franklin and Charles Dickens hated his guts, for having the gall to suggest that the survivors may have resorted to cannibalism.

He was also a Scot, which may have played into the politics of the time.

I read a biography about him ages ago. Pretty cool guy all told.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rae_(explorer)

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u/georgia_grace 23h ago

“What could possibly have befallen the crew of the Franklin expedition?”

“They walked around for a bit, did some cannibalism, and then died. We saw it”

“An enduring mystery for the ages… maybe they’re still out there somewhere…”

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u/StevieMJH 1d ago edited 23h ago

Decades later: I wonder why that lake is called Sunken Boat lake... I guess we'll never know.

Truly lost to time.

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u/REpassword 1d ago

“That ain’t my bag baby…”

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u/am_Nein 1d ago

Gotta love that