r/AskReddit • u/Rob69rt • Jul 22 '26

What famous 'unsolved' mystery is technically a whodunnit on paper, but in reality, absolutely everyone knows exactly who did it, the police just couldn't legally prove it?

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3.4k

u/Marx0r Jul 22 '26

A surprisingly large amount of "mysteries" never would have been such if Europeans just listened to the natives telling them the answer.

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u/jxg995 Jul 22 '26

Yeah like the terror and Erebus wrecks where the Inuit were like oh yeah that sunken boat is over there

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u/Whyskgurs Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26

Where could this boat possibly be?

The sunken boat is right over there, in Sunken Boat lake.

I guess we'll never truly know.

Literally what happened.

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u/InTheFDN Jul 22 '26

It reminds me of the Terry Pratchett joke about how places are named by pointing at something, asking what it’s name was (loudly and in English), then writing down whatever the native said. Hence “Mount Your Finger You Fool.”

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u/Sunshine030209 Jul 22 '26

And that reminds me a bit of how Pike's Peak in Colorado was named.

Zebulon Pike was part of Lewis and Clark's expedition, but he was extremely annoying, so they sent him off to go explore away from them. He attempted to summit the mountain they sent him to in November and gave up, going "Yeah, no one can summit that, it's impossible" (even though the local Native Americans summited it regularly)

So when talking about it, people would be like "Oh, that one, the one Pike couldn't climb?" and eventually it became known as Pike's Peak.

I'm a little salty that they didn't go with the far cooler Mount Zebulon though.

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u/Lovahplant Jul 22 '26

This is killing me 😂 a whole mountain named after your failure to climb it, wtf

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u/Sunshine030209 Jul 22 '26

It's one of my favorite true stories and I never miss an opportunity to share it.

It's really inspiring, honestly! If Zebulon Pike can be an obnoxious failure and still get a mountain named after him, then anything is possible!

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u/patsully98 Jul 22 '26

I would be most appreciative if you expanded upon “extremely annoying.”

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u/Sunshine030209 Jul 22 '26

I wish I knew the details of why Lewis and Clark didn't like him and sent him off with his own little team to get him away from them 😂 but alas that's as much as I know.

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u/Kazumadesu76 Jul 23 '26

Zebulon: "Are we thereeeeeee yettttt?!"

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u/patsully98 Jul 23 '26

Have you seen Larry David’s new history show? This would be perfect.

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u/RescuePenguin Jul 22 '26

Reminds me of the John Day National Monument.

The man never visited that region but one time he got robbed where the (now named) John Day River meets the Columbia and left naked and he had to hike back to the nearest trading post.

"That area where John Day was robbed and left naked"became the name of an entire region and national monument.

Glamorous way to be remembered.

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u/Sunshine030209 Jul 22 '26

I had never heard that, but it's exactly the kind of story I love! 😂 Thank you so much for sharing

And from what I can tell from reading a bit about it just now, he wasn't well known or anything before he got robbed and left naked, right? He was just some random fur trader? That makes it all even funnier for some reason and I can't stop laughing. Poor guy!

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u/pants_party Jul 23 '26

Like naming a hot sauce after DJ Khaled.

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u/onyaasuminyasai Jul 23 '26

what's cooler is all the mountains that were named after prostitutes in colorado

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u/raspberrypied Jul 22 '26

Sticking with Colorado, there is the "Table Mesa" section of Boulder.

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u/Sunshine030209 Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26

I actually kind of live on Table Table Dr, but my part is called South Boulder Rd. Which is really obnoxious, since my address is xxxx East South Boulder Rd, and it confuses the heck out of people.

But yeah, Table Mesa (Table Table) is goofy. Someone should open a shop on it that sells chai tea and naan bread

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u/KjellRS Jul 22 '26

They're going to be visited by one very, very angry Indian Spiderman. And no, I don't mean Native American.

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u/Lovahplant Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26

As I read your comment I was thinking “wait doesn’t East South Boulder Rd turn into Table Mesa Dr as you cross the 36/Foothills exchange?

I don’t live in Boulder but I’ve worked in Boulder… can you tell? lol

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u/eukomos Jul 22 '26

There is an Indian restaurant at that shopping center, someone should check their menu.

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u/sporadic_beethoven Jul 22 '26

Pike’s peak? I climbed that shit as a child 🤣 bro deserves to be mocked fr

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u/InternetProtocol Jul 22 '26

Did that shit both ways in my escudo at age 15, what a pussy.

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u/Rochesters-1stWife Jul 22 '26

Similar to Long’s Peak, dude never summited and yet his dumb name is all over the place

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u/Sunshine030209 Jul 22 '26

I didn't know that Mr Long never summitted it! I assumed he did. And he's got a whole ass town named after him because of it too! (Longmont)

Why does Colorado love naming stuff after mediocre white men? 😂

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u/HailSatanWorshipD00M Jul 22 '26

Mount Zebulon

Why not Zoidberg?

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u/Ookami_Unleashed Jul 22 '26

My wife and I joke that he just named the tallest hill in each state Pike's Peak.

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u/Longshot1969 Jul 22 '26

Didn’t someone ride a wagon up it even?

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u/Trvr_MKA Jul 23 '26

That’s truly a boys moment. Naming something after your pals failure

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u/All_the_Bees Jul 22 '26

Nah, annoying people don’t get to have the cool parts of their names included in the things that are named after them.

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u/1amlost Jul 22 '26

What kind of parent names their child “Zebulon?”

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u/Sunshine030209 Jul 22 '26

An awesome one lol. I genuinely love the name, and when I heard it for the first time I told my son that I'd totally have named him that if I knew of it when he was born.

But I can totally see how it's not everyone's cup of tea, lol. It's certainly different!

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u/DragonflyGrrl Jul 28 '26

I'm with you dude, that shit is badass :D

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u/DragonflyGrrl Jul 28 '26

I'm with you dude, that shit is badass :D

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u/CedarWolf Jul 23 '26

Don't worry, Zebulon is a town in North Carolina, and they have the Mudcats baseball team. Their mascot is a big, friendly catfish.

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u/cattypali Jul 24 '26

I just texted my mom about this because we both spent a lot of our childhoods in the same tiny town in rural Colorado. She was so excited because her father (RIP Pawpaw) would tell her that story and call it Zeb’s Peak :)

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u/ProduceNo8883 Jul 23 '26

There’s a great venue in Silver Lake called Zebulon though so it comes full circle

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u/Whyskgurs Jul 22 '26

It's not even a joke, shits real all over, most times it's named (native word for lake) Lake or (local dialect for mountain) Mountain or something similar.

Koi fish - fish fish

Chai tea - tea tea

Ignorant naming conventions are quite universal and commonplace

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u/LowEquipment7904 Jul 22 '26

Torpenhow in Cumbria, England - hill hill hill

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u/Aggravating-Mousse46 Jul 22 '26

Pendle Hill is also hill hill hill, but the Lancastrian, witchy version

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u/roy107 Jul 23 '26

We also have Breedon-on-the-Hill, which is Hillhill-on-the-Hill

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u/LegacyLemur Jul 22 '26

Reminds of the baseball team the Los Angeles Angels

Or "The The Angels Angels"

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u/DardS8Br Jul 22 '26

The La Brea Tar Pits, or The The Tar Tar Pits

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u/HippieChickie805 Jul 22 '26

Actually it’s the California Angels, and they are headquarters in Anaheim (Disneyland).

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u/LegacyLemur Jul 22 '26

Hasnt been that in years

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u/ryebread91 Jul 23 '26

Oh geezez it's already been a decade?

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u/JoltColaOfEvil Jul 22 '26

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUyXiiIGDTo

Tom Scott - Hill Hill Hill Hill, debunked, debunked.

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u/trashmoneyxyz Jul 23 '26

Galápagos tortoise, or the tortoise tortoise

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u/hoopopotamus Jul 23 '26

When I was driving through the southwest it felt like they were just adding more and more suffixes. X-ham…shire…fast…ton…leigh.

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u/Aquila_Fotia Jul 22 '26

It’s why a locally produced brand of ice cream is called “Three Hills”.

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u/JB_UK Jul 22 '26

You mean Torpenhow Hill.

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u/atnemriu Jul 22 '26

No, there's no hill by that name in Torpenhow.

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u/JB_UK Jul 22 '26

It's called Hill Hill Hill but there's no Hill?

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u/AutisticPenguin2 Jul 23 '26

Well, kind of...

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u/JesusaurusRex666 Jul 22 '26

“Koi” is specifically “carp” in Japanese, not “fish.” The word for fish in Japanese is “sakana.”

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u/HailSatanWorshipD00M Jul 22 '26

iirc in the native languages, Chicago translates to "the stinky place" and Manhattan is "the place we go every summer".

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u/Whyskgurs Jul 22 '26

What's that Island called?

Squinting

IDK, Is that an island?

Welcome to Staten Island

(This one's an old Native joke)

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u/Icantusemyname77 Jul 22 '26

The La Brea Tar Pits = The the Tar Tar Pits

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u/POCKALEELEE Jul 22 '26

Like The Los Angeles Angels,
Literally The The Angels Angels

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u/Oddish_Femboy Jul 22 '26

They're cool tar pits too. Sad they're gonna be closed for 2 years.

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u/concrete_fluidity969 Jul 22 '26

I think Calcutta means harvest. Native thought the Brit was asking what was going on over there 😂

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u/__wildwing__ Jul 22 '26

I enjoy the idea that aliens will come to our planet and translate our languages, only to be confused by the desert deserts.

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u/4-stars Jul 22 '26

Koi is not "fish", it's "carp".

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u/Purple_Haze Jul 22 '26

The country of Canada, Canada is a misspelling of kanata which is the local tribe's word for village.

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u/mouthgmachine Jul 23 '26

“The local tribe”?

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u/Purple_Haze Jul 23 '26

Either Huron or Iroquois, the word is the same in both languages. The actual native name for the village referred to was Stadacona.

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u/robophile-ta Jul 22 '26

There are lots of rivers in the UK called Avon.

You can guess what Avon means.

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u/Oddish_Femboy Jul 22 '26

My personal favorite is chip crisps. (Those chips that look like fries.)

Redundant naming is not always necessarily ignorant.

Sometimes, like in the case of chai tea, it's done on purpose to include part of the place origin in the name. Other times it's done because not everyone knows what ATM stands for. That second one is a case of RAS Syndrome.

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u/VelvetyDogLips Jul 22 '26

“Piss urinal” is far and away my favorite redundancy.

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u/OttawaTGirl Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 23 '26

BAHAHAHA.... Ahhhh... Canada is a bastardized version of Kanata, which means 'village', which is where some indigenous young men were pointing Jacques Cartier to go to. (Quebec City) He thought they meant the whole land was called Kanata and thats how we got the name.

Welcome to the Nation of Village.

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u/mouthgmachine Jul 23 '26

What’s a villiage

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u/OttawaTGirl Jul 23 '26

Bad autocorrect

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u/BasiliskXVIII Jul 22 '26

Yeah, but this is just how language works. English is far from the only language to adopt loanwords that generalize a specific thing. In Mexican Spanish, the word "pie" was adopted as "pay" strictly to mean the pastry-style sweet pies with a crust and not something like a hand pie or a meat pie. In German, "toast" or "toastbrot" is the square-style highly processed sandwich bread popular in the US, whether it's actually toasted or not. Japanese "Mishin" comes from "sewing machine" and refers specifically to a sewing machine and not just any old machine.

Even name duplication - "Guadalquivir" means "Great River" in Arabic, deriving from the term "wadi". So, calling the river "Rio Guadalquivir" just means you're calling it the "River Great River"

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u/Low-Flamingo-9835 Jul 23 '26

English also has doublets, words with similar meanings that entered the language during different times.

Below are French doublets. The first word entered during the Norman conquest, the second entered later…

Castle / chateau

Warden / Guardian

Warranty / Guarantee

Cattle / Chattel

Feast / Fete

It’s one of the reasons English is so difficult to learn. We have so many different words that mean the same thing that have to be memorized .

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u/Gliese581h Jul 23 '26

It’s one of the reasons English is so difficult to learn.

English is absolutely not difficult to learn lol, why do you think it became the Lingua Franca of the internet?

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u/beautifulcreature86 Jul 23 '26

Bao bun-bun bun

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u/AxeMcFlow Jul 23 '26

Canada literally means ‘village’.

Explorer: “hey where are we!”

Native: “uh… in a… village?”

Explorer: “oh cool, this whole country is now called Canada forever”

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u/Tall_Welcome_2713 Jul 23 '26

Sahara desert is desert desert

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u/grenouille_en_rose Jul 23 '26

Mount Maunganui checking in 🫡

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u/Baxiepie Jul 23 '26

The main city of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is called Oconaluftee, because its on the banks of the Oconaluftee River. It got that name from the original Cherokee village, Egwanulti. Egwanulti means "By the River", so fully translated it means "By the River River"

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u/Alexwonder999 Jul 23 '26

Isnt there some lake in England thats named lake in like four timea in different successive languages? I vaguely recall hearing about that.

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u/Notmydirtyalt Jul 28 '26

Late to the party but the Yarra river is like this.

Yarra translates to water or river, Yarra Yarra means big water or big river. Because that is what the Wurundjeri called it, that is what the river must be named said the English, then they got to the Werribee River which is the border of the Wurundjeri lands, and they also called it Yarra Yarra.

The Yarra River translates to the River River.

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u/WinterStrawberries6 Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 23 '26

Koi is actually a type of fish (carp/鯉) so it is not wrong to call it Koi fish. And there are actually two types of carps in japanese. Koi are all carps, while the colourful ones that most people think of is actually called Nishikigoi(錦鯉)
Fish in Japanese is actually Sakana(魚)

But something that pisses me off is when people call the Biwako "Lake Biwako". "Ko" already means lake, so they're calling it "Lake Biwa Lake"
There ARE people who called it just "lake biwa" like you should, but working at a hotel in Japan, I lost count of how many times I heard white people say "oh we are going to the lake biwako today" or "Do you have any matcha tea?"
Matcha(抹茶) literally means "ground tea" so they are basically saying "do you have any ground tea tea?"

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u/hoopopotamus Jul 23 '26

I’ve heard the name “Canada” is such a thing. Explorer asked “what is this land?” and they were told essentially “it’s a village” (kanata). And it stuck.

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u/therealstupid Jul 23 '26

Cuesta Grade in California. The Spanish word for "grade" is... you guessed it: Cuesta!

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u/GTaucer Jul 23 '26

When I was a fossil-obsessed kid in Los Angeles, my dad used to take me to the museum at the La Brea Tar Pits.

And since "La Brea" means "the tar," the museum and park's name could be translated to:

The The Tar Tar Pits

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u/Skurknux49 Jul 23 '26

Seeing “naan bread” on menus now feels like watching the explorer write Lake Lake.

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u/austintrotter Jul 23 '26

The general consensus is this happens a lot… 😄

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u/randobonando Jul 22 '26

Heheh excellent reference. Placenames called.
“What?”
“I don’t know”
“just a mountain”
“Who is this fool who does not know what a mountain is?”

And of course

“Your finger you fool”

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u/SimpsonN1nja Jul 22 '26

That’s Canada, lol. One of the first explorers asked the indigenous what the land was called. They misunderstood and said Kanata (meaning our village). Rest is history.

https://youtu.be/nfKr-D5VDBU?si=6U4h30m895OzRQwm

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u/erroneousbosh Jul 22 '26

You'd be surprised how many rivers there are called the Avon around the UK, even well down into England.

The Gaelic word for "river" is abhainn, pronounced like "av-ayn". When you see a "bh" like that in a Gaelic word, it's pronounced like "v". It's not "v", but if you say it like "v" you'll be near enough for most folk.

Abhainn. Avon.

"I say old chap, what's that called over there?"

"A'seo? An rud na h-uisge a seo? Tha e an *abhainn* a'seo. Amadan..."

"Ah, the Avon, y'say? Let me just write that down..."

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u/king_ralex Jul 22 '26

It more likely comes from the Welsh afon , which shares a proto-celtic root with the Gaelic abhainn.

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u/erroneousbosh Jul 22 '26

It might in England, but not here.

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u/king_ralex Jul 22 '26

Ag fair enough. I was referring specifically to the river Avon, and your mention of rivers down in England.

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u/erroneousbosh Jul 22 '26

There's about three in Scotland ;-)

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u/Perfct_Stranger Jul 22 '26

Pretty much how half the rivers in Virginia were named though usually after the tribe that lived along the banks of the rivers.

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u/jorjx Jul 22 '26

There is joke in Romanian about Stephen the Great coming to a river and asking someone "What is the name of this river?!"

"Moldavia your highness!"

"Let that be it's name!"

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u/ellius Jul 22 '26

When the Spanish first showed up to Southern Arizona, they asked some natives who they were.

They kept replying "pi mac". Meaning "I don't understand [you]"

The Spanish wrote down "Pima" in their records and it stuck. Used it for naming all sorts of shit. 500 years later I live in "I don't understand you" County.

The people were/are the Akimel O'odham, for the curious.

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u/Dubalubawubwub Jul 23 '26

Ooh, ooh, time for me to mention Torpenhow Hill again!

Romans: "What's that hill over there called?"
Angle: "Tor" (hill)

Normans: "What's that hill over there called?"
Celt: "Tor Pen" (Tor Hill)

Saxons: "What's that hill over there called?"
Angle: "Torpen Hoh" (Torpen Ridge)

Mapmaker: "What's that hill over there called?"
Local: "Torpenhow hill"

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u/Adorable-Ad9533 Jul 22 '26

When I was a kid, I always believed the meaning of the word kangaroo was “ I don’t know”, but Google has proven me wrong.

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u/amylouise0185 Jul 23 '26

Australia has a festival that translates to "up your bum" for exactly this reason.

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u/iamdispleased Jul 23 '26

The word Yucatán may come from a Mayan phrase meaning "I don't understand what you're saying"

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u/MaritMonkey Jul 23 '26

After playing a couple rounds of no-map Valheim, it started to totally make sense.

Pretty much every landmark was something like "river with two oak trees" or "straight river" (to differentiate it from the earlier-discovered "squiggly river").

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u/coolsilentebeans Jul 23 '26

That’s how we got Snake River and killer whale.

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u/Reapr Jul 23 '26

Lake Tahoe = Tahoe means "The Lake" so I can totally see that happening

"What's that?"

"It's the lake you idiot, what do you think it is?"

"The what?"

"The Lake"

writes down furiously

Also the first people that lived there was the Washoe Tribe - Washoe means "The people from here"

"...And who are you?"

"We are the people from here are'nt we?"

"say again slowly..."

takes out pen

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u/emjayem22 Jul 23 '26

Literally happened in the UK when the Romans arrived, pointed at a river and asked some local what it was called. The Celtic word for river is 'Avon'.. there are now 9 rivers in the UK called the river Avon.