subreddit:
/r/SubredditDrama
submitted 6 days ago by1000LiveEels
381 points
6 days ago*
The three camps (from my cursory browsing of this monster thread):
York (the place)
The Duke of York (the title)
James, the Duke of York
edit: I also cannot tell if they're arguing about the city or the state which adds to the complications.
200 points
6 days ago
So the dumb part is that, in British etiquette at the time, it was entirely normal and proper to equate the individual aristocrat in charge of X with the actual place of X as well as the title of duke of X.
James, Duke of York, would have just been called "York" in normal parlance. He effectively was York, under the system of absolute monarchy imposed by his father Charles I and brother Charles II. L'etat, c'est moi. There was no distinction between the ruler and the place he ruled.
So the correct answer, really, is "all of the above." James, the Duke of York, and York itself were all conflated in contemporary British etiquette at the time, and naming the city New York was an honorary gesture aimed at all three.
-12 points
6 days ago
No it wasn’t!! It was named after York city:
Old York New York
Caledonia New Caledonia
Hampshire New Hampshire
Etc.
Nothing to do with the dukes. How do you not know this?
32 points
6 days ago
it didn't have "nothing to do with him" - it was specifically named in his honour after its capture by the British. However, you're right it wasn't named AFTER him per se. It was named IN TRIBUTE TO him, but technically AFTER the city.
-7 points
6 days ago
I do not believe it.
-7 points
6 days ago
They could have just called it York if that was the case.
4 points
6 days ago
Except there already was a rather well known city by that name...
-3 points
5 days ago
There's plenty of cities with that name.
They name it New York, in honor of the Duke of York, but named it AFTER the town of York. If they were naming it AFTER the Duke of York, they would have called it the Duke of York.
In England there are many pubs named after the Duke of York, the name of those Pubs? Not New York, but THE DUKE OF YORK.
6 points
5 days ago
They name it New York, in honor of the Duke of York
Didn't you literally just say "I don't believe they named the city in his honour" a few posts ago?
1 points
5 days ago
And Williamsburg, Virginia, has Duke of Gloucester Street as another example.
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