When I was about 8 in southwestern PA, we took a trip to central PA to visit Gettysburg, the Amish Country, Hershey, and all that. We took a steam train ride that promised a "trip to paradise".

I remember two things clearly about that train:

1. If you are sitting close enough to the front and lean out far enough, you get hot steam mist droplets painfully scalding your skin.

2. The train indeed went to Paradise, PA, with a big welcome sign, and I remember thinking "Is this a joke? I guess some people aren't very good at humor." I really don't know what I did expect or what would have impressed me more.

Yes I grew up around there. Intercourse is close to Paradise.

Sounds like Strasburg railroad.

Yes! That was it.

Some discussion here:

https://www.discoverlancaster.com/blog/wacky-town-names-lanc...

It seems the story I was told about the town of Intercourse at least has some merit.

In Swedish, the word for cross is Kors. I know it's not a Swedish town name, but a lot of Swedish words are the same or similar throughout other Germanic languages. In this case, it is namely Dutch, which has a direct connection to the area due to the Amish people there.

Anyway, I was told that the town name literally referenced two inter-crossing roads, and Kors was, instead of being anglicized to Cross, became Course.

> In this case, it is namely Dutch,

German (specifically derived from the Palatine German dialect), not Dutch (the Germanic language of the Netherlands.)

That gets somewhat confusing, since we tend to call it Pennsylvania Dutch, and the area as "Pennsylvania Dutch Country."

So it surprises me to discover that the language is connected to Germanic Switzerland.

As much as Kors was seemingly mistranslated to course instead of cross, Deitsch was apparently mistranslated into the word Dutch instead of German.

And people make fun of the Scandinavian quirks in Minnesota. Uff da!

Thanks for the correction. This error-prone history would make for a great YouTube documentary.