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this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The best ones are thoughts that many people can relate to and they find something funny or interesting in regular stuff.
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River x is the standard form (river ganges, river thames, river nile) it's only really when a river is named after an existing place that it's different (LA river, Chicago river), where the location is used as an adjective. The same applies to oceans and seas generally, where they're named relative to an existing place or concept and so the adjective comes before, rather than the name coming after.
Aren't those cities named after their respective rivers, though?
I could be wrong about those two (especially Los Angeles, which is shortened from a much longer name that may have been applied to the settlement before the river, or maybe both simultaneously) but in all other cases I can think of, rivers or other natural features tend to be namesakes rather than the other way around while still following that convention. Colorado, Delaware, Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio are all named after rivers and we still use the "x River" format for those rivers.
It seems like it might be more of a convention for English speakers in the eastern vs western hemisphere to me.
Most rivers in Canada are (x) River. Though you will see some River (x).