Spotted Dick & School...

[Carol]

Geoff:
> Should be told that any self-respecting Brit could sit on Brown
Willy and eat spotted dick - the latter probably cold and in a
sandwich <g>.
> 
> I've climbed Brown Willy quite happily in the past..

Carol responds:

I take it that Brown Willy is a hill? And spotted dick in a sandwich?
I thought that it was a dessert.

Do I dare confess that Arizona has a hill or small mountain that used
to be called, in the rough days of the Old West, Squaw Tit because of
its color and shape. (I'm tempted to replace the "i" with an asterisk,
but I'm trying not to be prudish!) The name was later changed to Squaw
Peak, but even that name was criticized as politically incorrect. It
was recently changed again to Piestewa Peak in honor of a Hopi soldier
named Lori Piestewa (pronounced py-ess-tuh-wah), who died in Iraq in
2003. At least the new name alliterates (though I wonder if the people
who renamed it know the original name, which they wouldn't want
associated with Private Piestewa). I'm surprised that it didn't become
something innocuous and bland like Brown Hill, but I guess that they
wanted to honor an American Indian (Native American) woman to undo the
indignity associated with the term "squaw."

Sidenote on Dolores Umbridge: I used to have trouble spelling her
first name (I wanted to make it "Delores") until I started associating
it with "dolor" (mental anguish or grief). I still tend to spell
Umbridge as "umbrage," I suppose because I take umbrage at her actions!

Carol, realizing that the Squaw Peak example doesn't represent British
and American linguistic differences, but it does illustrate modern
American sensibilities probably shared by the teacher in question