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I always find it really weird when somebody on the anonymous internet talks about local places as if we're all neighbors or something. Googling "Richmond Hill"
by lanza 5mo ago
I always find it really weird when somebody on the anonymous internet talks about local places as if we're all neighbors or something. Googling "Richmond Hill" gave me multiple pages of results that had nothing to do with the one that Attenborough lives at.
- msikora 5mo agoRichmond Hill, London
- saalweachter 5mo agoNow I just hear the Cinema Sins "ding!".
- sho_hn 5mo agoNot to sound hipster about it, but if it's done in this way I find it charming. I also had to piece it together, which took me on a little virtual travel tour, and had me wonder about what Richmond Hill means to the locals. Rather fitting in context, too. The "everyone on the internet is American" stuff in e.g. politics or job market convos is a lot more grating.
- barrkel 5mo agoIf you're familiar with London, you know where Richmond is and that it's a wealthy area. A search confirms there's a Richmond Hill in Richmond.
- Phemist 5mo agoOr if you've seen Ted Lasso
- psvv 5mo agoIn hindsight it maybe should have also been obvious from the language alone. "Richmond Hill" feels a bit like saying "Rich Hill Hill" which is basically like saying "Wealthy Desirable Area."
- Tagbert 5mo agoBTW there is a linguistic tradition of “hill hill”. When new immigrants come to an area and ask the locals what that hill is called, the locals say “big hill” in their language. The newcomers call it “bighill” hill in their language. I forget the examples but this has happened enough in England that there are places whose names are five hills deep (Brythonic -> Latin -> Saxon -> Norse -> Norman).
- JimDabell 5mo agoThese are known as tautological place names: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tautological_place_names https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tautological_place_nam...
- teiferer 5mo agoThanks for sharing! My contribution to this discussion is the place in BTTF which makes fun of this concept, the home of Marty McFly: Hill Valley Not a tautological name but an oxymoronic one!
- UncleSlacky 5mo agoYou're not thinking fourth-dimensionally!
- tomalpha 5mo agoOne of my favourite quotes from the late Terry Pratchett: > When the first explorers from the warm lands around the Circle Sea travelled into the chilly hinterland they filled in the blank spaces on their maps by grabbing the nearest native, pointing at some distant landmark, speaking very clearly in a loud voice, and writing down whatever the bemused man told them. Thus were immortalised in generations of atlases such geographical oddities as Just A Mountain, I Don't Know, What? and, of course, Your Finger You Fool.
- vixen99 5mo agoAa in the the old English folk song "The lass of Richmond Hill".
- vr46 5mo agoThat's about Yorkshire, but yes
- Projectiboga 5mo agoThe hill offers the only view in England to be protected by an Act of Parliament—the Richmond, Ham and Petersham Open Spaces Act passed in 1902—to protect the land on and below it and thus preserve the fine views to the west and south. Two years before the wooded isle centrepiece of the view, Glover's Island (also known as Clam Island), was bought by a local resident and given to the Richmond Corporation (Borough) in return for the latter noting against its records that it and its successors would not develop the isle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmond_Hill,_London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmond_Hill,_London
- serf 5mo agowould you rather less anecdotes or more hard coordinates?
- ASalazarMX 5mo agoI'd bet "Richmond Hill, London" would have been geographically adequate. Don't we criticize USAians for their provincialism?
- DavidPiper 5mo agoI really enjoyed OP's story, and the way they told it. Knowing the location of Richmond Hill is really not the point.
- wolvoleo 5mo agoWell yes but it does open the question for me as to what the place is like and why he'd like it so much.
- jjulius 5mo agoFor me, I know "Richmond" is used numerous places near me locally, so my assumption would've been that "Richmond hill" is too generic a query. "David Attenborough Richmond hill" would've been the way. I'd hardly fault OP for my own choice in query.
- DANmode 5mo agoand when you googled the book shop name?
- skrebbel 5mo agoYes, but it’s refreshing that for once it isn’t a San Francisco neighbourhood!
- throwaway2037 5mo agoTry this search: The Open Book in Richmond UK
- stuaxo 5mo agoIt's in the Richmond that's in London, not the one in Yorkshire.
- hnlmorg 5mo agoLondon isn’t exactly a small “local place” and there is only one Richmond Hill in London. So I’m not sure what the issue you’re having is.
- Toutouxc 5mo agoLess than 0.2% of the world's population lives in the wider metropolitan area of London. I live in Europe, I've been to London a few times, I have no idea what "Richmond Hill" is or whether Sir Attenborough actually lives in London.
- torben-friis 5mo agoI get where he's coming from, Attenbrorough is vocal about being a londoner to the point he has a whole documentary about the city, and he's very present in UK media. I get why it doesn't seem so obvious from the outside, but for British people it's as obvious as Apple headquarters being in California.
- hnlmorg 5mo agoYou didn’t need to know any that because the GP literally referenced London in their comment.
- bluebarbet 5mo agoThe second sentence was unnecessary.
- hnlmorg 5mo agoReally? It’s mild compared to the average tone on HN.
- skeeter2020 5mo agoYou had context, it piqued your interest and you did a tiny amount of work to figure it out. You could have quit without all three but you didn't; I wish the internet had a lot more of these types of experiences. It's only in the last ~25 years when the Internet became an anonymous place where we aren't all neighbours, and I mourn the loss.
- pyb 5mo agoI don't think full context should be provided at all times in casual internet conversations. However, in your defense, "Richmond" is one of the most overloaded geographical names, second only to "Kingston".
- duncans 5mo agoGet better at Googling https://www.google.com/search?q=The+Open+Book+in+Richmond https://www.google.com/search?q=The+Open+Book+in+Richmond