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Post by Little Jack Horner on Dec 23, 2020 0:56:20 GMT
Great Cockup and the nearby Little Cockup are not “places” so much as fells (hills) in the English Lake District. Adapting from Wikipedia, the names derive from the Old English cocc and hop, where cocc means a woodcock or a black grouse (or blackcock) and hop means a small valley. So: fells above a valley where there are woodcocks or black grouse.
You mention the River Piddle in Dorset, Vv. There are several other piddles and puddles in the Piddle valley including Piddletrenthide and Piddlehinton and Tolpuddle (from where the celebrated “Tolpuddle Martyrs” came).
Dorset is well known for curious and possibly “rude” names including Shitterton, an attractive village named for its having once been a farmstead on a stream used as a sewer. There is also Scratchy Bottom, shown on Ordnance Survey maps not far from Arish Mell on the coast. Arish Mell apparently derives from Arsmyll, a mill near a landscape feature resembling an...er...buttock (from A D Mills, Dorset Place-names, Countryside Books, 1998).
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Post by Verbivore on Dec 23, 2020 2:24:03 GMT
Thanks, LJH. :-)
And of course you have S****horpe, Grope**** Lane, and other delights.
The most interesting place names in AU are those that existed before Cook and his crooks arrived here – Indigenous names.
There's a move to now use the Indigenous names in conjunction with invader-imposed names. Examples include Uluru / Ayers Rock and, across the ditch, Aotearoa / New Zealand.
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Post by Twoddle on Dec 23, 2020 9:53:18 GMT
I've mentioned this before but I live near Lynsore Bottom and Pett Bottom, the signpost to the latter having been amended for a couple of years recently by a wag with paint pen, to read "Pert Bottom".
I went to school with a lad from Pratts Bottom which is said to have been called "Spratts Bottom" in pre Norman times. It seems that the Normans weren't keen on Saxon place names that began with an S followed by a consonant and that they used to drop the S; I read somewhere that Nottingham was originally called "Snottingham". Fortunately Scunthorpe, a Viking name, wasn't given similar treatment.
Also nearby are the town of Sandwich and village of Ham. It costs Kent County Council a fair bit of money to have to repeatedly replace the oft-stolen signpost that reads: "Ham Sandwich".
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Post by Dave Miller on Dec 23, 2020 11:15:15 GMT
Forgive me if I’ve mentioned before the road near me, called DOGPOOL LANE - on the sign for which someone keeps painting out the first “L”.
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Post by Verbivore on Dec 23, 2020 11:19:11 GMT
Very good, Dave. :-)
I had a friend called Lois, who lived at the far end of an otherwise uninhabited nameless lane in a country town. She convinced the council to name her street Lois Lane. Unfortunately (for me, at least), Superman never visited.
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Post by Verbivore on Dec 23, 2020 21:00:59 GMT
Here it is, Xmas Eve already in Oz. Whatever the Silly Season means to you, I wish you the best of it.
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Post by Verbivore on Dec 23, 2020 21:19:50 GMT
Not a happy note?A Muslim man's experience of celebrating Christmas for the first time has struck a cord after he shared his observations of the holiday. I hope he isn't garrotted by it.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Dec 24, 2020 0:58:12 GMT
>> Here it is, Xmas Eve already in Oz. <<
Surely not. I have this argument every year, Christmas eve surely cannot start before around 18.00 hours?
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Post by Verbivore on Dec 24, 2020 1:44:50 GMT
I hadn't considered it that way, LJH, but isn't it the eve of Xmas? (It's not, though, Xmas evening, which is the later part of tomorrow.)
eve – the day or period of time immediately before an event or occasion. • the evening or day before a religious festival. • chiefly literary evening: a bitter winter's eve.
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Post by Verbivore on Dec 24, 2020 11:45:34 GMT
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Dec 24, 2020 18:07:01 GMT
Now. It has just gone 18.00 UTC so I think it is officially Christmas Eve everywhere.
Happy Christmas to everyone. I wish you all a peaceful and healthy 2021.
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Post by Twoddle on Dec 25, 2020 11:14:42 GMT
A Happy (if quiet) Christmas to you all.
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Post by Verbivore on Dec 27, 2020 0:46:31 GMT
From Verbivore ("the wishor") to you ("the wishee") – please accept without obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, politically correct, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral, typo-free celebration of the seasonal holiday, practised within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion – or secular practices – of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practise religious or secular traditions at all.
Verbivore wishes you a financially successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2021, but with due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures or sects, and having regard to the race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious faith, choice of computer platform, or sexual preference of the wishee.
By accepting this greeting you agree with, and are bound by, these terms that:
* This greeting is subject to further clarification or withdrawal at the sole discretion of the wishor;
* This greeting is freely transferable provided that no alteration shall be made to the original greeting and that the proprietary rights of the wishor are acknowledged;
* This greeting implies no promise by the wishor to actually implement any of the wishes;
* This greeting may not be enforceable in certain jurisdictions and/or the restrictions herein may not be binding upon certain wishees in certain jurisdictions and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wishor.
This greeting is warranted to perform as reasonably may be expected, within the usual application of good tidings, for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first.
And, finally, best wishes for the holiday period and the new year.
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Post by Twoddle on Dec 28, 2020 14:14:04 GMT
A subtle joke by Ivo Graham. It's all in the punctuation.
Pfizer vaccine: effective, protective and safe Modena vaccine: effective, protective and safe Oxford vaccine: effective, protective, and safe.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Dec 28, 2020 17:36:51 GMT
Have you got your commas right, Twoddle? If so, I don’t understand.
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