Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2019 October 6

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October 6

US 'K' branded campsite in the 1960s

Although I'm English, I lived in the States in the 1960s as a kid and did a lot of road trips with my family and a camper trailer, staying in various campsites. There was one large chain of campsites, I think, called something like Kodak campsites or Kodiak campsites (neither of these return any hits), or a name beginning with the letter 'K'. Sorry this is very vague, but can anyone help with identifying the chain? I've had no luck with an online search and it's really bugging me. There might have been a big 'K' sign outside the campsite too (we're talking a trip from Washington DC to the West Coast, so it could have been anywhere in between). I looked up Howard Johnson ice cream parlors too, as that was another big part of my US childhood, and found that the company had stopped doing ice cream in the 1970s or something; the 'K' campsites might possibly be defunct too. Ericoides (talk) 12:04, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

When in the 1960s? Could you be thinking of Kampgrounds of America/KOA? According to that article, it was founded in 1962, decided to expand to more grounds in 1963 and had 262 campgrounds by the end of the 1969 camping season. Nil Einne (talk) 13:40, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

1968, 1969. Yes, that's a really good shout, thanks, and it might be it. Doesn't look familiar, however; I was sure it was a word like "Kodak", but I was only 5 and 6 at the time. Ericoides (talk) 14:31, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Come to think of it, KOA does have three of the five letters of KODAK... (PS I'd have had a sharp word with whoever decided on using a K for Kampground.) Ericoides (talk) 14:35, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia Has An Article On Everything!: see Sensational spelling. Alansplodge (talk) 14:44, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

I'm obviously looking in the wrong place then for How not to make you campsite look like an affiliate of the Klan. Ericoides (talk) 16:21, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

It's not spelled KKKampground. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:26, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Evidently not K Camp either. 2606:A000:1126:28D:68A0:D82D:EF5B:865F (talk) 16:38, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Nor does it need to be, it's a special k. The Klan's not called the KKKlan. Camping, boy scouts, Baden-Powell, the British Empire, jumpers for goalposts, the Wandervogel, the Hitler Youth, Kamping. Ericoides (talk) 16:51, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Who ever said the word Kampground somehow implied Klan involvement? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:54, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. An extraneous K is perfectly kosher. SinisterLefty (talk) 20:58, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

So Alan was right; we do have an article on everything, or at least a subsection. I think I was reminded of Amerika in its Yippie use, although our article claims that this was a reference to the German/Nazi spelling and not the Klan, although I'd have imagined that these two things were easily elided. Ericoides (talk) 06:42, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

People who spell Afrika with a K, to make it less Eurocentric or something, had a problem when they also wanted to use the Yippie spelling Amerika with a very different significance. They resolved it with Amerikkka. — Btw, elided means omitted. —Tamfang (talk) 18:30, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Btw, Tamfang, elided also means joined together or merged. Ericoides (talk) 11:02, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Urgh. Okay, I see that someone somewhere misunderstood why French l'eau is called elision, and extended the metaphor. I would urge avoiding that extension for clarity's sake; it shouldn't be hard to invent a sentence in which the two senses lead to opposite meanings. —Tamfang (talk) 17:20, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

And today I learned that the <small> tag affects indentations! —Tamfang (talk) 18:32, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

And today I am learning how to write in an even smaller font! JIP | Talk 11:32, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

I always had another unfortunate associate with KOA, mine being KIA. This was before it was known as a car company in the US, or I might have confused a KOA portage with a Kia Sportage. SinisterLefty (talk) 20:11, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Maybe that's why Kia Motors omits the crossbar from the "A" in their logo. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:27, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

So the A turns into capital λ (L) so it spells KIL. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 09:38, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Kia have got previous in this regard. I recall they decided not to sell the Kia Provo in the UK. Ericoides (talk) 13:19, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Then I suppose you'd best be careful about which cites in Utah you select as sister cities. I'm sure the men there, and all their wives, will be disappointed. SinisterLefty (talk) 22:53, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Filling in "missing letters" to make a real word is something I've done, too. I can't look at the Ulta brand without seeing "Ultra". SinisterLefty (talk) 21:28, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

The reverse also applies: "Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast". Not beast. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:27, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Some of us might not mind be attacked by savages breasts. SinisterLefty (talk) 22:54, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

The names of the continents are actually spelled "Amerikka" and "Afrikka" in Finnish as the letter "c" doesn't occur natively in Finnish. JIP | Talk 20:45, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Good for them. Always seemed like a useless letters, to me (x is another). It either makes a k or s sound, so why not just use k or s to make it klear ? It is needed for the ch sound, but it would make sense to just use c for that, if it was no longer used for anything else. Everyone who agrees, ceer me on ! SinisterLefty (talk) 01:59, 12 October 2019 (UTC)