I have a 2.5 year old topic I need to print a retraction on and make a lot of apologies.
A long time ago I complained (bitterly) that new Austinites pronounced the street I live near as "Man-chawk-ah" when it has previously been pronounced "Man-shack". It is spelled "Manchaca".
It IS true that the name of both street and the nearby community are pronounced, traditionally in Austin as "Man-shack". But, just as we pronounce Guadalupe as "Gwod-uh-loop", it's just how it is. But that's not what I got wrong. I'm sticking by the "Man-shack" pronunciation. But I now think it was NOT a name of Czech origin. I think that was a bad bit of info I got off the news around 2000.
So this week, for some reason, I tried looking up the work "Manchaca" as a Czech name or word, and I came up with nil. So I looked it up as a Spanish name and, lo and behold, there are innumerable entries of folks of Hispanic origin with the name "Manchaca. So, I have no idea what the people on the news were talking about, and I apologize for single sourcing my story.
Manchaca was named after Manchaca Springs, which were named after José Antonio Menchaca, an early military and political leader in Texas.
ReplyDeletesrc- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchaca,_Texas
I'm guilty of long spreading that fallacy of the Czech origin as well. I stand corrected.
Wow. I cannot believe I didn't just Wikipedia the darn town. I appreciate the info! It's great to have confirmation.
ReplyDeleteIt's easy enough to believe the name could have had Czech origins in this part of Texas, and I really have no idea if the early residents weren't also of Czech origin. All very interesting.
Czech Mex? Or Czech Tex Mex?
ReplyDelete