Gazi Antep or Gaziantep? That is my question...

image via digitaltrends.com

Being a creature who loves the world of words, I generally pay attention to roots/stems, possible origins of a word, etc. A few things about the town names in Turkey which I've observed:

Gaziantep might have been Gazi Antep, and I sort of figured this out in a weird way. Ask someone from that town where they're from and they might tell you they are "Antepli", or from Antep. So what's the Gazi part about? Lucky for me (and you) I travel with my handy-dandy reference guide - erm - husband. Gazi can also be spelled ghazi and means warrior. Warriors are from Antep, I guess?

How about Kahramanmaraş?  Kahramanmaraş or Kahraman Maraş. I like the ice cream from there - or at least the guy in Mersin who's from there makes good ice cream, maybe it has something to do with that? Nope. For Maraş, we honor the hero.

Then there's Şanliurfa, or Şanli Urfa, aka famous, but for what? I found all kinds of foods like kebab and cheese, etc, but you know Gazi Antep has plenty of yummy stuff too.

There are probably other examples and I've noticed the trend doesn't apply to just cities. Example: Fatih Sultan Mehmet. The guy's name was Mehmet! Fatih=Victor Now we have Fatihs and Sultans and Mehmets...but that's another story.

Imagine if we had names like that. Instead of New York, it could have been Opulent York or maybeVogue York, although I suppose at the time it was named, NY was neither of those things.

Founder President George?

Perhaps I need to work on the embellishment technique.

So:

Who is the hero of Maraş? Who is the Warrior of Antep? Why is Urfa famous? Well, that seems to be my homework for the week. That and the gypsy girl from Gaziantep.

Gaziantep "Antep the Victorious Warrior"

Zeugma

via losbosques.net, image credit: Nevit Dilmen

Zeugma can be three things:

1) Literary terminology (from the Greek: ζεῦγμα, zeûgma, meaning "yoke") A figure of speech describing the joining of two or more parts of a sentence with a single common verb or noun. A zeugma employs both ellipsis, the omission of words which are easily understood, and parallelism, the balance of several words or phrases. The result is a series of similar phrases joined or yoked together by a common and implied noun or verb. Source: wikipedia
There are distinctions for specific versions: prozeugma, mesozeugma, hypozeugma, diazeugma, etc.

2) An ancient Roman city

via hurriyetdailynews.com

3) A Mosaic Museum in Gaziantep, Turkey.

Three guesses on which one I'm interested in. And you're right either way. It's all interesting to me.

But those eyes want to tell me a story and I'm almost in spinning mode, so I'll write down a few notes, then plunk them into my snowflake when I'm ready. I have a character who might make good use of them.

In the meantime, if you're heading to Gaziantep, I suggest you stop in and visit her. And her friends. Apparently, Zeugma is now the largest mosaic museum in the world.

Yay Turkey!

Zeugma draws record visitor numbers on first day Hurriyet Daily News