Weird Western Maryland

  One of my favorite place names is Contrary Knob, a 2,500-foot summit in Garrett County, between Deep Creek Lake and Savage River Reservoir. I know absolutely nothing about the origin of this name. Was the mountain itself somehow contrary, or did it become synonymous with a contrary person who lived on it? My ignorance would make this short entry even shorter, if not for the fact that “knob” is vulgar British slang for “penis” – and thus, at least since 1920, has been a British term for “an annoying, unpleasant, or idiotic person (esp. a man or boy),” so that an online search for the phrase “contrary knob” is likely to turn up a lot of insults.  The use of “knob” as an insult is becoming common in the States, too, and writer Ben Yagoda noted that it spiked online shortly after the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol attack, “surely because so many knobs have been acting knobbish in this country in recent days.” “Maryland’s panhandle comprises a rolling succession of rises with f...

  One of my favorite place names is that of Dung Hill Road, which runs east-west between Foxtown Road and Bittinger Road, south of I-68 in Garrett County. I don’t know whose dunghill the name commemorates, but I know a surprising amount about dunghills in general. A dunghill was common on old-time farms. Before the advent of store-bought fertilizers, the livestock made the fertilizer, in the time-honored way of ingestion, digestion and excretion. Hence, the economic value of a dunghill. Whoever was tasked with replenishing the dunghill was also a good indicator of where that person stood in the farm’s hierarchy that day. Of course, like the words “sty” and “pigpen,” the word “dunghill” centuries ago left the farm to become a popular metaphor for anything “repulsive or degraded” (Merriam-Webster), “repugnantly filthy” (Dictionary.com), “vile” (YourDictionary.com) or “foul” (American Heritage Dictionary, Collins English Dictionary). As the folks at New Testament Baptist Chu...