Georgia: Why so many counties? | Hacker News Reader

Georgia: Why so many counties?

jimcofer.com

102 pointsmkr-hn42 comments

> Finally, the Normans invaded England in 1066, and they subdivided the land into counties, from which we get the title of “Count”.

Other way round: "county" comes from "count", which is an anglicisation of a gallicisation of the Latin "comes", literally "companion" but forming part of a number of Late Roman military titles, such as comes brittaniarum, commander of the British field army in the 4th century.

Thank you, that sentence irritated me too.

Although the shires became counties after the Norman conquest, the rulers remained earls, probably because 'count' was too similar to a rude word.

> probably because 'count' was too similar to a rude word.

Now that's a theory I've not heard before: you could well be right.

However, the Wikipedia article on the word in question says that it's not attested in English before 1230 (though it has cognates in Old Norse -- which contributed a lot of vocabulary to English, via the Danelaw settlers -- and in other early Germanic languages), and that as late as Chaucer it was not considered obscene (though by Shakespeare's time it was).

But I suppose it wouldn't have to be obscene to cause problems: puerile humour appears to be part of the human condition, and we can imagine the sniggering today if a conquering foreign power tried to impose a governing class with titles that sounded like "buttock" or "scrotum".

[Edits: improve phrasing; fix spelling & random capitals.]

You're talking about 'cunt', right?

Yes, and they would have sounded more similar before the great vowel shift.

Chaucer has it written as 'queynte', so the words may have actually sounded more different.

The OED's earliest attestations is 'cunte' (first in 'Gropecuntelane').

> a governing class with titles that sounded like "buttock" or "scrotum".

Titles of those who server in a bi-cameral legislature.

I did wonder if that was the Normans reconnecting with their Viking roots, as it was the Danish kings of England who first used the word as a title for provincial rulers, in its Norse form jarl.

Given that the wife of an Earl is still a countess, I am not sure about the rude word theory as cunt used to be a lot less taboo. The streets used by prostitutes throughout many towns in England were called Gropecunt Lane until well into the 1500's.

Prostitutes have been taboo for quite some time so by association, that street name would be too. Interesting that it would be allowed as a public road name perhaps but I assume still taboo.

That's a good point, and countess has a pretty early attestation. Thinking about French too, con is pretty close to comte, although I don't know the history, and con is not obscene like in English currently.

The Wikipedia page on "Earl"[1] has a quote with citation agreeing with the theory. I wonder if that book has any more evidence.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl#Etymology

Is that why we pronounce "country" the way we do?

> the rulers remained earls, probably because 'count' was too similar to a rude word.

Shakespear's plays often have characters talking about "country matters", as well...

And from "shire reeve" we got "sheriff".

>which is also why, until recently, Georgia voters would waste time voting for such low-ranking officials as coroners and dog catchers.

We still vote for coroners. The corner has powers similar to the sheriff (to execute arrest warrants, serve process etc..). In some places coroners even have the power to arrest the sheriff if needed.

We actually had a problem in Berkeley County, South Carolina at Christmas where the sherrif engaged in a drunken hit and run and then a high speed chase. He was charged and released for the reason that only the coroner has the power to arrest the sherrif.

In Colorado that was true also. When Hunter S. Thompson ran for sheriff (Pitkin County?), he had a friend run for coroner to have his back.

Thanks for this. I grew up in Georgia and knew some of this, but a lot of it was new to me.

It prompted me to read more about the Trans-Oconee Republic, and I found an old 20 page academic publication about it on the Open Library. The OCR is screwed up in places, so I've been making my own corrected copy the last hour or so. Open Library doesn't seem to allow for corrected versions. Looking in their email list archives, they just don't have the tech to support that, which is a shame. Maybe I'll upload the corrected version to Gutenberg or something.

https://openlibrary.org/books/OL6659849M/Elijah_Clarke's_for...

Very interesting article. I'm from Iowa and I always knew we had a lot of counties (99), but didn't realize there were states with so many more. IIRC, the rationale for making all of our counties roughly the same size is that the state founders wanted everyone to be within a one day horse ride to the county seat so that it was easy to vote.

The same theory was responsible for the French département system, set up by the revolutionary government in 1791 and still a fundamental organizing structure today. I presume the Iowans were following the French example.

A lot of counties fell out of the Public Land Survey System:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Land_Survey_System

(it looks like many Iowa counties are roughly the size of a Quadrangle)

Quite a contrast with someplace like this, in Oregon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harney_County,_Oregon

Which would still qualify for the old census bureau definition of frontier, having fewer than 2 people per square mile.

Consider it's just north of Nevada, which has a lot of empty space!

May I recommend "Miles from Nowhere" http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/product/Miles-from-Nowhere,.... Turns out that a county in Texas has fewer folks per square mile.

Looks good - added to my wishlist. Offhand, it seems a bit like: http://www.amazon.com/Last-Empty-Places-Present-American/dp/... which is, unfortunately, also unavailable on the Kindle.

Thanks for the read. I moved to Atlanta metro area from Miami about 9 years ago and always wondered this. I currently drive across 5 counties on my way to work.

Yeah...it's fun living here in GA.

Except with the Pollen Count is insanely high...

http://atlantaallergy.com/pollen_counts

Great post! I was born in Clarke county but didn't know much of this history.

(When Oglethorpe was 4 years old, a baby named Joe Waters was born in Virginia. He eventually migrated south, with descendants in Georgia and Alabama. Lots of people there look like me, which is really too bad. But the overwhelming crush of people coming into the area over the past 30 years has mixed it up quite a bit. Probably an improvement.)

At the other end of the scale Connecticut and Rhode Island have discarded counties as a unit of government. And Delaware has consolidated most former county functions at the state level.

The pox in many states ends up being townships, which mostly duplicate functions of the county (Especially now that we have an extensive road system and telephones).

New England states (incl RI, CT) are a bit of a funny example, though, because of the way they use "towns" in a way that that I (from the midwest) associate more with counties. Across RI, CT, and MA (and maybe the northern states too), every bit of land is allocated to a "town", even if they are well outside the central population concentration of that town, and indeed even if there are multiple, differently-named, population concentrations. (These latter are often called "villages", and may cross town boundaries and in a couple cases even state boundaries. They don't really have any formal legal existence other than having a name people use to refer to them.)

Anyway, so the idea that RI and CT have discarded counties as governmental units has mostly to do with the fact that they have replaced them with something else.

I lived in CT briefly. I only hinted at it with the comment about townships, but I'm impressed that they recognized the redundancy and did something about it.

(If I understand correctly, they moved most of the regional functions up to the state and most of the more local stuff down to the towns, so the towns do more than a town might in other states, but not quite the same things as a county)

Don't even get started on Illinois.

Many land-area classifications are also left over from the old homestead system which was itself tied to railroad expansion: the railroads were rewarded with acreage across which they traversed, and major U.S. railroads still retain massive land holdings.

Speaking of Georgia, does anyone here live in the Atlanta area? I would love to get to know other HNers living nearby.

I'm all the way out in Winder, which is technically within Metro Atlanta. Probably too far.

A little bit far, but at least I can say I know of another HN user in Georgia. :)

Send me an email if you're ever out this way, and I'll do likewise.

Thanks immensely for this as well. My great-grandmother was a white woman adopted by a black couple in the 1920s in Screven County (along the SC line two counties NW of Chatham). I always wondered how that county could have such a small population.

By what metric is Georgia "the largest state east of the Mississippi River"? Certainly not by area or population.

Georgia is the largest state east of the Mississippi by land area.

Michigan is larger if you include part of the Great Lakes.

I like this type of long read on a nice Saturday afternoon. And the comments are quite instructive.

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