I'm not sure this is crucial :) to the fictional explanation you gave, but
it should be pointed out the name "Las Cruces" was chosen for the site
because 3 graves with crosses were discovered by some Europeans, presumably
Spaniards, who thought they were the first Europeans to ever come there.
 There were no other markings or anything to indicate who was buried there,
or who had buried them.

Many of the names of towns and cities in NM and also in Texas are Spanish
in origin with religious overtones.  For example Corpus Christi, means
"Body of Christ", Santa Fe means "Holy Faith," a theme repeated in old
French in Quebec, "Sainte Foy."  There is also a wide selection of San or
Santa something or other.  The nomenclature is also repeated in California
where you have Los Angeles, "The Angels" and Santa Cruz meaning "Holy
Cross" and not "Holy Crossing."

If one were to subscribe to your fanciful explanations,  San Francisco
would actually translate to "Holy Frank,"  "Holy Sausage" or better yet
"Holy Wiener."  That's a little hard to swallow.

Kind regards,

Denys. . .

Denys Beauchemin
HICOMP
(800) 323-8863  (281) 288-7438         Fax: (281) 288-7438
denys at hicomp.com                             www.hicomp.com


-----Original Message-----
From:   Wirt Atmar [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:   Saturday, September 29, 2001 4:00 PM
To:     [log in to unmask]
Subject:        Re: Wildly OT: Simple math question

Steve writes:

>WRT "rules...of which most people have no knowledge": if a "rule of
grammar"
>exists only in the minds of a tiny fraction of the population, it may be
>appropriate to question both its value and its existence as a "rule". For
>example, I hate the word "appendixes". However, almost any time I use the
>"correct" term "appendices", I get asked what I'm talking about. Am I the
>only "correct" person in the area, and the other three thousand people
>around me are "wrong"?

In that same vein, the city I live in is Las Cruces, NM. The name was
chosen
to determine whether you're a gringo or not. How you pronouce "Las Cruces"
is
a test that most gringoes fail, even though "Cruces", is a perfectly good
English word also. It's the proper plural of "crux" (look it up in your
favorite dictionary), although "cruxes" has become common enough to appear
in
some dictionaries nowadays.

The original Latin word "crux" meant "cross," not in the religious sense,
but
as in "to cross an ocean" or to "cross out a mistake." When Latin evolved
in
Spanish, the "x's" became "z's", so the Spanish word became "cruz", while
the
English equivalent became "cruise," pronounced virtually identically.

Thus, the next time that you hear that Tom Cruise is cruising with Penelope
Cruz and that they've become cross with one another, simply say to
yourself,
"It's all right. They're all derived from the same word."

Wirt Atmar
Las Cruces, NM

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