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    #26
    A couple of Devon pre-/suf-fixes: Clyst and Tavy. Any clues?

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      #27
      Originally posted by pebblethefish View Post
      Lickey End always sounds like a rather unpleasant disease dogs get.
      We had a Pett Bottom close to where I lived near Canterbury as a kid - which sounds like a milder strain of the same condition.

      (That infamous 'Ham/Sandwich' sign was just up the road, as well.)

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        #28
        Originally posted by Guy Profumo View Post

        Mull of Kintyre
        Very clever. No it's that Southend is simply at the south end of Prittlewell which was the dominant settlement in the area 2-300 hundred years ago. it's also where Roots Hall is located so they really should be known as Prittlewell United. Or not.

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          #29
          Originally posted by Guy Profumo View Post
          I'll start

          Tarbert.

          Somewhere on land between two bits of water.
          Not to be mistaken for Tarbet, despite meaning the same and being on the same bus route (Citylink 926: Glasgow to Campbeltown)

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            #30
            This is a fun listen: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002bnd

            It’s where I learned that anything ending in -ey was once an island, or raised bit in a marsh.

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              #31
              Yank here. This thread seems to be a good place for three of my longstanding questions about England/Britain geography.

              1) Milton Keynes: Who was he, and why did they name a town after him? Was he related to John Maynard Keynes?

              2) What's the difference between Maidstone and Maidenhead?

              3) How do you pronounce "Southwark"? To me, as an ignorant Yank, it looks simple enough: south+wark. Sounds pretty cool, too, if pronounced like it's spelled. But I get the feeling that I'm very off on this.

              I'll hang up and listen. P.S.: Don't take these questions too seriously.




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                #32
                1. Milton Keynes was a small village they built the new town around. The Keynes bit of the name came from a local wealthy family, so it's possible the economist was related to them?

                2. About 50 miles

                3. "Suthurk", with the 'th' as in 'with' not 'think'.
                Last edited by Rogin the Armchair fan; 20-09-2020, 09:44.

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                  #33
                  1. A bit more rummaging around on Wikipedia reveals that the village that Milton Keynes was named after was originally called Middelton (middle town) with Milton being a contraction of Middelton rather than a man's first name.

                  And the Keynes is a shortening of the "de Cahaines" family, who invaded with the Norman conquest. Various surnames have derived from this including: "Koine", "De Keynes", "Keynes", "de Cayenes", "Caynes", "Caines", "Cheyney", "Cheney", "Chaney", "Chaineis", "Cahaignes", "Casneto", "Caisned", "Casineto". And John Maynard Keynes is one of the descendants. The family has links to other place names including: (Ashton Keynes in Wiltshire, Somerford Keynes in Gloucestershire, and Horsted Keynes in West Sussex).

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                    #34
                    Originally posted by KyleRoteJr. View Post
                    2) What's the difference between Maidstone and Maidenhead?
                    The former is in Kent, the latter in Berkshire. (As Rogin suggests, they’re a little way apart.)

                    Not to be confused with Maiden Castle (Dorset) or Maida Vale (west London).

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                      #35
                      Originally posted by Jah Womble View Post
                      The former is in Kent, the latter in Berkshire. (As Rogin suggests, they’re a little way apart.)

                      Not to be confused with Maiden Castle (Dorset) or Maida Vale (west London).
                      Or indeed Leeds Castle, of Edward I and Henry VIII fame, which is also in Kent (right by Maidstone in fact) and not anywhere near Yorkshire.

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                        #36
                        But how do you pronounce "Southwell"?

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                          #37
                          Suvl

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                            #38

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                              #39
                              Maidenhead- from 'hill by jetty'

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                                #40
                                Right it's yer old favourite, the Ultonia quiz

                                1 Clough, Co Down rhymes with

                                A brow
                                B dock
                                C rough
                                D Shaw

                                2 How many syllables in Millisle?

                                3 Where do parallel beams of light meet about 4 miles south of Belfast city centre?

                                4 How long is the Six Mile Water, Co Antrim?

                                A 6 miles
                                B 16
                                C 26
                                D 36

                                5 If something rushes past you at the Waterworks end of Duncairn Gardens covered in feathers and going "Quack! Quack", its most likely to be

                                A local councillor Big Mal goes fancy dress for this year's Pride
                                B A duck
                                C On the run from a paramilitary beating
                                D I told ye Air BnB in BT15 was a false economy

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                                  #41
                                  3. If they're parallel they never meet

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                                    #42
                                    Aye, in Finaghy

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                                      #43
                                      The security guards at my former workplace in Leeds were approached by tourists wanting directions to Leeds Castle. After Kirkstall Abbey and Harewood* House were offered up as possible detiantions, it was determined they wanted Leeds Castle in Kent, 250 miles away.

                                      Similarly when Diana died people were visiting Althorpe (small village on the Trent near Scunthorpe) hoping to see her final resting place.

                                      I grew up on the Isle of Axholme (not an island, but did used to be cut off by two rivers and marshland), which is definite viking country - thorpe is old norse for farmstead (Scunthorpe, Althorpe, Garthorpe, -by as Paul S mentioned (there's also of course Grimsby). Also toft, an area either set aside for the community, or the opposite depending on translation (Eastoft, Sandtoft, Blacktoft), and all along the Ouse there are fleets, denoting which particular warlord's troops landed there (Swinefleet, Adlingfleet, Faxfleet) Swine is King Sweyne, nowt to do with pigs.

                                      Originally Scunthorpe was one of five villages, but became the name of the town thanks to the railways - the original station was in the village of Frodingham and was named as such, they then added "and Scunthorpe" when a new station was built. Then when the present station went up, the railway company decided one name would be better, and so they chose the one with an obscenity in it. By this time the villages were merging into one and becoming a town and they called it Scunthorpe because that's what the station was called. Scunthorpe originally came from escume-torp, escume being the viking, so it's possible it could have been the more respectable Scumthorpe, or perhaps Cumthorpe.
                                      Thinking of the "Scunthorpe problem" (in internet terms) reminds me we used to have school trips to the similarly afflicted Lightwater Valley.

                                      * "Harrwood" House on the outskirts of the village of "hairwood"

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                                        #44
                                        Originally posted by jwdd27 View Post
                                        The security guards at my former workplace in Leeds were approached by tourists wanting directions to Leeds Castle. After Kirkstall Abbey and Harewood* House were offered up as possible detiantions, it was determined they wanted Leeds Castle in Kent, 250 miles away.
                                        My dad worked in a 24 hour petrol station (in Carlisle) in his latter years and used to tell the story of a guy coming in late one evening, with his family in the car, asking if it was much further to Hull. It turned out they had set off from Liverpool with the directions "get on the M62 and stay on it to the end, then follow signs for Hull", and mixed up M62 and M6.

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                                          #45
                                          The Ouse regularly flooding York always made me wonder if they should rename it “The Oh Fuck, Oh Fuck, It’s Coming Through The Window”

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                                            #46
                                            Originally posted by jwdd27 View Post
                                            Scunthorpe originally came from escume-torp, escume being the viking, so it's possible it could have been the more respectable Scumthorpe, or perhaps Cumthorpe.
                                            That's a shame, they wouldn't have had to suffer any of those problems with internet profanity filters in that case, no sir.

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                                              #47
                                              Very much a Scottish slant on things -

                                              Inver and Aber, as in Inverness and Aberdeen, both mean mouth of the river - the rivers being the ness and the dee.

                                              Kyle, as in Kyle of Localsh, means narrow strait of water.

                                              Ben is a mountain. Glen is a narrow valley.

                                              Finally, the village of Avoch (pronounced och) in the Black Isle near Inverness, where I was brought up, means mouth of the stream, derived from the Gaelic word abhach.

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                                                #48
                                                Is it the same ben as is but and ben? Isn't the but the outer room (with the door to outside) and the ben the inner room?

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                                                  #49
                                                  Originally posted by sw2borshch View Post
                                                  Is it the same ben as is but and ben? Isn't the but the outer room (with the door to outside) and the ben the inner room?
                                                  Your definition of a but and Ben is spot. I’ve no idea where the term originated from.sorry.

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                                                    #50
                                                    Originally posted by DPDPDPDP View Post
                                                    Very much a Scottish slant on things -

                                                    Inver and Aber, as in Inverness and Aberdeen, both mean mouth of the river - the rivers being the ness and the dee.
                                                    Not just Scottish, Aber means mouth of the river in Welsh as well (perhaps unsurprisingly)

                                                    A couple of related facts

                                                    Avon comes from afon in Welsh meaning river. This means that the many River Avons in the world are effectively called River River. The story, similar to the kangaroo myth, goes that visiting Romans would ask the local Celts "What's that river called?" (or whatever in Latin) and the local would answer "Afon" which is also why there are about 7 River Avons in Britain alone.

                                                    Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysilio gogogoch (yes, I can pronounce it and used to be able to translate it) is the longest place name in Britain but has only been called that since the 19th century when it was named it as a publicity stunt. Previous to that, it was called Llanfairpwllgwyngyll.

                                                    In a similar vein, Westward Ho! was named after the book (again in the 19th Century and, again, for a publicity stunt) rather than vice versa. While it is the only place name with an exclamation mark (and possibly any punctuation mark outside of a hyphen) un the UK, it shares its honour with Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha! in Quebec.
                                                    Last edited by Bored Of Education; 21-09-2020, 21:38.

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