The NowIKnow newsletter is a source for speech topics

On July 16, 2018, in a post at The Official Toastmasters International Group on LinkedIn, Eleni Palmos mentioned a newsletter called NowIKnow (written by Dan Lewis) as a source for speech ideas.

I looked at their archive and found an article from June 19, 2018 titled Why is it named Idaho? Idunno! It isn't really a Shoshone word meaning gem of the mountains. He says the name was made up by a lobbyist - George M. Willings. Some of Dan’s references are Wikipedia articles, but there also is one from a 2013 Boise Weekly article titled How Idaho got its name: the big fib. It looks like information in that article really came from an Idaho State Historical Society article titled How Idaho got its name.

Owyhee County is at the southwest corner of Idaho. Its name is real – and was in memory of three native Hawaiians (Owyhee) who disappeared while exploring a river and mountains in the winter of 1819-20. The next county to the east is Twin Falls County, whose county seat is a city  also named Twin Falls. There is a Boise County, but that’s not where the city of Boise, our state capital, is. Instead it is in Ada county.

When I lived in Ann Arbor, I remember hearing that quite a few places in Michigan had faux Indian names dreamed up by Henry Schoolcraft.

On January 22, 2014 I blogged about Don’t just get on the bandwagon! Find your own speech topic and approach. Also, on July 28, 2015 I blogged about Thinking up speech topics. Finally, on January 19, 2012 I blogged about Developing a sure-fire speech topic.