Talk:Turners Falls, Massachusetts

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"Turner Falls" as a metonym

There has been a lot of back and forth on this, so I wanted to set up a talk page. With regards to my recent edit:

The current citations support the fact that the Town of Montague is not generally referred to as “Turners Falls”. For example, the Montague Reporter (citation 3) will always specify the village in which its article is focused. Articles about the bridge of names, for instance, are correctly labeled as “Lake Pleasant”, not “Turners Falls”, the latter being what would be used if everyone “generally” referred to everywhere in Montague as “Turners Falls”. The next two citation link to pages that says prominently at the top, “Town of Montague”. The citations after that are Greenfield Recorder articles correctly identifying Montague-related news stories as happening in Montague. Then there is the school district site, which also identifies the town as Montague, and two more news stories that refer to the town as “Montague”. If the term “Turners Falls” were generally used as a metonym for the town, then almost all sources would use it, including official ones. In reality, some people do incorrectly use “Turners Falls” as a metonym for Montague, but it is uncommon outside of the village of Turners Falls. The villages of Montague all have distinct cultures, and people from other villages tend to bristle at being lumped in with the village of Turners Falls.

This isn’t a new phenomenon, either. In E.P. Pressey’s History of Montague: a typical Puritan town (worth a read), he includes an 1895 address by Robert P. Clapp, I believe to the Montague Historical Society of the time. In it, he says, “As this is a day for considering the old town we need not pay further regard to our suburbs of Turners Falls and Millers Falls than to point out what a privilege it has been for them to possess a share of our soil. Besides, we may today fairly indulge a spirit of mild resentment at the former of these thriving villages for having captured and carried away from us our town meeting. As one of the institutions established by the fathers, it deserves to be here now, close by the site of the first school and church, the three together symbolizing the practical sagacity, the learning, and the piety of New England.”

In other words, there have been divisions between the villages for at least a hundred years. So, there is historical precedent when contemporary Montague natives take umbrage at being lumped in with Turners Falls. Basically, calling the town “Turners” is, to many Montague folks, akin to being considered part of Boston by an out-of-stater (or indeed, Turners being considered part of Greenfield by someone unfamiliar with the area).

In any case, the point is, Montague has five villages, and people from the other villages won’t identify themselves as being from “Turners” (except maybe Montague City, though the Montague Reporter’s new “Montague City Rambler” column indicates a nonzero number of people who do consider Montague City separate from Turners). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Left the Shire (talk • contribs) 16:06, 3 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I quite agree that people from Millers and Montague Center resent being referred to in the regional press and by those from outside of town as living in "Turners Falls." I also quite agree that people from the other villages likewise resent Turners Falls' domination of the town. What does that have to do with it? The heavily cited fact remains that "Turners Falls" is the common metonym for the town, whether or not it suits the amour propre of Lake Pleasant or Montague Center residents. (It's not the only such case in Massachusetts, even: ask someone living outside of the village how much they love "Hyannis" being used as a metonym for the town of Barnstable.) Ravenswing 21:06, 20 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]