Problem
St S w i t h i n s - spell checker deletes the initial letter so I have inserted spaces - was a street where I visited a restaurant earlier this week and Saint S w i t h i n s day is July 15th, (in 2017 on this coming Saturday). There's a saying that if it doesn't rain on St S w i t h i n 's day it won't rain for another forty days. I don't believe that, but it does help me remember the name of the street of the restaurant.
How do you remember the street names of the city, your hotel, memorise the map, understand directions?
Answers
Start by learning the words for 'street', and saints' names. In this post I am covering the UK, USA, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain. The tips will help you with other countries and I have links to websites which cover them.
Story
I came across streets with saints names when looking up St Swithin's street, location of The Don restaurant, described in my previous posts, and thought I would check out all the others saints names in the UK, then the ones in other countries. Would I recognize them? See how you do.
Streets named after saints alphabetically:
Firstly, it's surprising how many streets and shopping malls in the UK are named after saints and kings and Queen Victoria. For example, in Harrow, St Ann's and St George's shopping malls. Also we have hospitals, such as St Mark's in Harrow, and St Thomas's in Central London. Victoria station.
Plus a few more religious names, Cannon Street in the City of London, which I though was named after a military cannon, until I thought it might be a canon. Then there is upmarket Bishop's Avenue in London.
Here are the common English ones - not new to you if your first language is English, but accustom your eyes to the English ones and then the Spanish and Portuguese ones become easier to remember.
UK - London
In England saint is shortened to St on maps of streets and railway stations, but so is street, but street is sometimes shortened to str in English and other languages.
St Anns - shopping centre in Harrow, opposite Harrow on the Hill station, if visiting Harrow school, famous for being the school of poet Byron, Sir Winston Churchill and many more famous people.
St Catherine - origin of the name of the revolving firework, a Catherine('s) wheel. See also spelling with K.
St Georges - shopping centre in Harrow, at the end of the pedestrian area shared with St Anns.
St James's Park, and St James's Park station, one along from Victoria station (train station and bus station).
St James's Street, site of Berry Brother's former wine shop (new one around the corner), Chutney Mary's restaurant, link street between Piccadilly (Ritz Hotel) and Pall Mall.
St John's School, Northwood, feeder school for Merchant Taylors.
St John's Wood, an area of London, and a station on the London tube map, for Lords Cricket Ground.
St Katherine Docks, redeveloped area beside Tower Bridge, with restaurants.
St Lawrence's Church, Edgware, has Handel's organ.
St Luke (Remember the bedtime prayer for children: Mathew, Mark, Luke and John, guard the bed that I lie on.)
St Matthew (I think of the St Mathew's passion, a piece of music).
St Martin's art school in central London, which many famous artists attended. You can find a list in Wikipedia. Bruce Oldfield, Bill Gibbs, Russell Brand, amongst others. It has now merged with Central school of Art and become Central St Martin's which I think is rather cumbersome.
St Martin's Lane in Central London.
St Mark's Square in Venice.
St Paul's Cathedral in London and St Pauls station stop on the London tube station map.
St Thomas' Hospital in London - where you will see statues of Florence Nightingale and since 2016 a statue of black Jamaican nurse Mary S e c o l e (spaces inserted because spell checker inserted Seattle), which was opposed by the Florence Nightingale society.
St S w i t h i n ' s - less known than the other Saint streets, a street where I visited The Don restaurant which I described in my last post or two.
There are many more saints, enough for the Catholic church to allot one saint to every day of the year and give many people in Catholic countries born on that day a saint's name as their first name or middle name.
USA
San Jose, California (Pronounced san hoe say, more like z a y - which spell checker keeps turning into say) Saint Joseph in Spanish?). You might remember the song, "Do you know you way to San Jose?)
St Augustine, Florida
Santa Monica Boulevard, Los Angeles (Saint Monica grand street: Los Angeles is Spanish for the angels)
See Wikipedia
England
See Wikipedia
France
Jean is John
rue is street
See Wikipedia
Germany
Johann is John as in Johann Sebastian Bach.
Strasse is street, with the bendy s rather like a capital B with a post like a P in gothic script for double s.
See Wikipedia
Italy
strada is street, like the film La Strada, the street.
See Wikipedia
Poland
Saint John's Street - Świętojańska
That looks quite complicated until you break it down.
S...T for saint. Jan for John. (I remember: "Saint John? Uh-ha!'
If it helps, think of it as 'Street of John', using the letter 'S...t o(f) J.N ...'
Wiki says:
Traditionally the streets in Warsaw, unlike in many other cities in Poland, are named with adjective forms rather than in simple nouns in nominative case. For instance, the street named after Saint John is named Świętojańska (literally Saintjohnian Street) in Warsaw and Święty Jan (Saint John) in Poznań. In modern times the tradition is not closely observed and most streets named after personalities or groups are named with nouns in genitive case, thus the forms correspond roughly to the English prepositional phrases (for example, the Polish Plac Zwycięstwa means literally Square of Victory rather than Victory Square).
Spain
calle is street
See Wikipedia
Tips
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Streets_named_after_saints_in_the_United_States
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/shortcuts/2016/jun/20/mary-seacole-florence-nightingale-statue-st-thomas-hospital-row Article also about rival statues such as Rio's Christ the Redeemer and rival/copy.
USEFUL WEBSITES
https://tfl.gov.uk (Underground railway in London known as the tube.)
https://art.tfl.gov.uk/projects/permanent-commission-by-daniel-buren/
www.visitlondon.com
www.londonpass.com
www.visitbritain.org
Author
Angela Lansbury, B A Hons, CL, ACG. I have many more posts on London, England, the USA, Europe and Asia and the world and learning languages and more blogs. I am also on Youtube, Facebook and LinkedIn. Please bookmark, follow this blog, and share links to your favourite posts.
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