Jonathan writes to say that in the Batman comics he read when he was a small boy the adventures always happened in Gotham City.
It’s only as an adult that he realised Gotham City was the name being used for New York.
So, he asks, where does that name ‘Gotham’ come from when applied to New York?
It seems that we can blame American author Washington Irving (1783-1859) for this.
It was he who first used ‘Gotham’ to mean New York in a humorous article he wrote for a magazine called Salmagundi (that strange name means ‘a salad consisting of many different ingredients’—so I suppose that’s what they thought their magazine was: a whole lot of stuff thrown together on a plate!)
So, where did Washington Irving get the name from?
One theory is that there was a village called Gotham in Nottinghamshire in England.
The story is that bad King John (Magna Carta etc.) decided to visit Gotham on a royal progress.
The villagers realised this would be expensive (when the king visited you, you had to pay the enormous costs of the visit of his huge retinue).
So, they decided to pretend to be imbecilic in front of the king’s heralds, by trying to fish the moon out of a pond, running madly in circles, trying to drown an eel, clasping hands around a thorn bush to imprison a cuckoo, and other crazy actions.
The ploy worked and the king decided he would rather not visit such a nutty place.
A collection of stories about stupidity was published in the reign of Henry VIII, entitled The Merrie Tales of the Mad Men of Gotham.
By Washington Irving’s time ‘Gotham’ had long been associated with stupidity, (even though the original story was actually about a kind of twisted cleverness).
Washington Irving thought this just the name to give to a city which he believed was inhabited by fools.
Why writer Bill Finger and artist Bob Kane (the creators of Batman) decided to pick up on Washington Irving’s lead and apply ‘Gotham’ to the New York of their day (Batman first appeared in 1939) is unclear.
But they did!
The latest edition of The Spectator Australia is in newsagents now -- with a cartoon of Anthony Albanese and the Iranian Women's Soccer team on the front cover (Albo is saying to them "I sympathise with you, I don't like singing my country's national anthem either"... clever cartoon) -- and my 'Language column in the back.
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The latest issue of Australian Geographic is now at newsagents -- with a big beaked kookaburra on the front cover, and inside my two small columns on 'Ozwords' and 'Placenames.'
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* My latest book is Sherlock Holmes: 5-Minute Mysteries -- containing 50 new stories I have written about the great detective. You can find it on Amazon. Just go to Amazon and type in Sherlock Holmes: 5-Minute Mysteries in the search panel. Or use this link: h Amazon.com.au : Sherlock Holmes 5-Minute Mysteries Kel Richards
* My book "Defending the Gospel" is now in a second, fully revised, edition. You can find it here: Defending the Gospel – matthiasmedia.com.au
* If you're looking for my recent book "Flash Jim" you'll find it here -- Flash Jim, The astonis
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BY THE WAY...
If you'd like to see my A-Z list of Aussie slang, you'll find it here in the Australian Geographic website -- A-Z list of Aussie slang. Here’s the link: The A-Z of Aussie slang - Australian Geographic
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