Oh demonym, you hiding little bastard you.

Our cat has decided that she's a much better typist than I am, and keeps batting my fingers away from the keyboard.



Anyway.

Demonym. This is a word I've been searching for for four years (always a surprise to see two double words in English). It refers to the name of someone from a location, so what's the demonym of someone from Brisbane? Brisbanite. The demonym of someone from New Castle? Nova Castrian.

I asked everyone I knew. I asked a dozen English teachers and no one knew what the word was (I discovered it today, thanks by accident to wikipedia and looking up Melbourne (Melburnian, btw). I asked my linguistics professors, I asked my very clever friends, my hot girlfriend, I even asked google on a number of occasions. No one knew. Not even google (it does now, but only because I know, so therefore: google is powered by my brain. It's no surprise really, I knew this all along :))

So now I get to sound like a pompous ass and I feel that I'm obliged to bring this word up in conversation as much as possible, because it has been BUGGING THE CRAP OUT OF ME FOR YEARS.

I wasn't shouting then, that was the cat that appropriately hit the caps lock.



Anyway.

I guess I should take my victory and avoid the dumb feeling that I could have checked wikipedia all along, but honestly, if you don't know a word but know the meaning, it's very hard to find it if no one else knows what you're talking about either.

Now I'm compelled to find a list of the weirdest demonym's around. The Asian names should be the funniest. What do you call someone from Sendai? Or Lesbos?

And what do you call a guitarist without a girlfriend? Homeless.