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Is it true that the Washington Monument was not built on the site of the Jefferson Stone -- the site which marks the exact cross point between the Jefferson Memorial, the White House, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Capitol -- because that site was considered not stable enough since it lay on reclaimed swamp land? --Suzanne Clarke <sjclarke@mindspring.com> ====================== Webster's dictionary defines swamp as "wet spongy land." The word swamp was a perfectly good word in the 17th,18th and 19th century, when the Great Dismal Swamp of Virginia was aptly named. But a swamp is something you want to go out and drain, which is what the Army Corp of Engineers did to the Potomac and Anacostia lowlands around DC from about 1889 to 1912. Then came the environmental movement which strived for the sanctity of wetlands, as well as the post modern "deconstruction" movement which seeks to cleanse and launder language. So the old word swamp just would not do. Something more politically correct like marsh or wetlands replaced swamp, just as "hearing impaired" replaced the old unsavory "deaf and dumb." People who study history should remember that in other eras words often had differing connotations and meanings. Gary Scott <Gary_Scott@nps.gov> Matthew Gilmore H-DC list co-editor, web editor dc-edit@mail.h-net.msu.edu http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~dclist/ [list website] http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/lists/subscribe.cgi?list=H-DC [subscribe to H-DC] Remember to check http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=lm&list=h-dc for past list messages.
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