Favorite Town names

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Feb 10 - 06:54 AM

I also find the village of Norton Thrubwell strangely attractive....


Wot aboat Nempnet Thrubwell? Acker Bilk sings a song about it, written by Adge Cutler (who was his roadie initially).
And a lovely song it is.

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: Will Fly
Date: 23 Feb 10 - 04:32 AM

I thought an Aston Juxta Mondrum was a very flash car...

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: Gweltas
Date: 23 Feb 10 - 03:41 AM

Just a few off the top of my head...............
Skinner's Bottom, Cornwall, UK
Crinkly Bottom, in Cricket St.Thomas, Somerset, UK
Buckland Monachorum, Devon, UK
Herodsfoot, Cornwall
St. Austell, Cornwall, (pron : "Snozzle")
Launceston, Cornwall, (pron : "Lan-son")
Redruth, Cornwall, (pron : "Druth")
Pelynt, Cornwall, (pron : "Plynt")
Mousehole, Cornwall, (pron : "Mow-zell")

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: Dave Roberts
Date: 23 Feb 10 - 03:32 AM

Sorry - slight typo there. It's Aston Juxta Mondrum.

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: Dave Roberts
Date: 23 Feb 10 - 03:29 AM

I have an odd feeling I've mentioned this before, many years ago, but there's a little village near Nantwich which, unlike most others, has retained its Roman name of Aston Juxtra Mondrum.
Rather musical, I feel.
And talking of Cholmondeley, L.T.C. Rolt recounts in one of his books having been informed of the correct pronunciation of this name and shortly aftwerwards happening on the village of Cholmondeston, which he confidently pronounced as 'Chumston', only to be told that, in this case, it should be pronounced 'Cholmondesterton'.

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: Aeola
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 05:03 PM

St. Cuthbert Without --- without what ? Idon't know, but it's in Cumbria. and of course Cholmondeley, ( pronounced Chumley ) near Malpas.

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: Anne Lister
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 05:02 PM

I love looking at the road atlas as we're travelling and finding names ... current faves are Redmarley Dabitot and Huish Champflower. We have an on-going travel game in which we work out what sort of characters these are.

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 04:46 PM

There was an item in the news here in Sydney a few days ago about a drug bust in country New South Wales. Nothing unusual about that, except that the bust took place in Woodenbong.

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 03:38 PM

A question asked purely out of curiosity

~ My post 5 back about Steeleye Span's use of name "Maidenhead" in a joculsr intro was the first in the 8-year existence of this thread to have the remotest musical connection.

Why, please (I repeat ~ just out of curiosity), has it been above the line all this time?

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: Howard Jones
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 03:16 PM

Someone way up the thread mentioned Ham and Sandwich, in Kent. Here's the roadsign:

Ham Sandwich sign

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: Howard Jones
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 03:13 PM

I have a friend who lives at Loggerheads with his wife.

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: GUEST,Jonny Sunshine
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 02:40 PM

Three superb names off the top of my head are
Nemptnett Thrubwell
Marston Bigot
and maybe best of all Marsh Gibbon

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: GUEST,Murpholly
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 02:33 PM

Just of to Hope (Derbyshire) having visited what fitzherbert Fitzilliam (Yorkshire)

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 02:27 PM

Re Maidenhead, Berks (uk) ---

When Bob Johnston with Steeleye Span used to intro their singing of Ups·&·Downs, he would say, "Here's a song about a young woman who went to Maidenhead and lost her Aylesbury."

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: GUEST,DWR
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 02:22 PM

It's been a long time since Watchdoggy asked,(02 Jun 06 - 02:49 PM) but yes, I do know where he is. He asks I pass an exit for "Toad Suck" and head north to "Bald Knob"; Any idea where I am? That would be Arkansas which is also home to a good many more unusual names, Possum Grape, Oil Trough, Fifty Six, Solgohachia and Frog Town just to name a few. We've also got Chimes and Bell City, Oxley, Boxley and Martin Box. Then there's Morning Sun, Morning Star, Evening Star and Evening Shade. That's probably enough.

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: BobKnight
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 12:28 PM

How about these - the bane of TV and radio announcers.

Drumnadrochit - a wee village on the banks of Loch Ness.
Craigellachie - in Speyside, distillery country.

and
Loth - in Caithness, sounds like something out of H.P. Lovecraft.

In Aberdeen, a street name, "Lang Stracht," Sounds Dutch or German, but it's Scots - just means long, straight.

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: RobbieWilson
Date: 02 Jun 06 - 09:02 PM

If I can, I go to places I like the sound of. I've been to Biggleswade, To Pratts Bottom, in kent, to East Grinstead, just because it sounded so grotty. I'll hink of some more in a bit.
love robbie x

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: Crane Driver
Date: 02 Jun 06 - 06:56 PM

Cwmrhydiceirw and Llangefelach. Two areas on the outskirts of Swansea. They really roll off the tongue.

Watchdoggy - sounds like you're near one of John Prescott's homes.
(UK political joke)

Andrew

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: Watchdoggy
Date: 02 Jun 06 - 02:49 PM

I pass an exit for "Toad Suck" and head north to "Bald Knob"; Any idea where I am?

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: Scoville
Date: 02 Jun 06 - 12:57 PM

Texas: Cut N Shoot, Chocolate Bayou, Dime Box, Reklaw ("Walker" was already taken), No Name (the one they wanted was spoken-for), Telephone (on the cutting edge of modern communications technology, apparently)

Arkansas: Needmore (as in, we need more residents . . .), "Y" City (literally built at a fork in the old highway)

Missouri: Peculiar, Tightwad, Claycomo (which is in Clay County, MO)

Colorado: Fairplay, Silver Plume

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: Big Jim from Jackson
Date: 02 Jun 06 - 12:00 PM

I haven't read the whole thread, so it may have already been mentioned, but in Illinois a Normal man married an Oblong woman. I know the story behind it, but Truth Or Consequences, New Mexico, is just weird.

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: Splott Man
Date: 02 Jun 06 - 07:37 AM

I notice there are a few places in Essex with Tye in the name.
Anyone know what it means? Any relation to the Welsh Ty and Cornish Chy?

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: Valmai Goodyear
Date: 02 Jun 06 - 05:06 AM

Matching Tye, Essex, UK

Valmai (Lewes, Sussex)

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: GUEST,Allen in Oz
Date: 01 Jun 06 - 10:30 PM

Bongongolong
Terramugamine
Wee Waa
Coonabarabran
Cootamundra
Woolomooloo

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Jun 06 - 04:10 PM

Beats me.

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: Rasener
Date: 01 Jun 06 - 04:00 PM

Birmingham UK

I like the Muff one, and makes me think of Muff Winwood. Why oh why did he call himself Muff. :-)

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: MartinRyan
Date: 01 Jun 06 - 03:28 PM

Twomilepothouse

Regards

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 01 Jun 06 - 11:57 AM

Muff. It has a diving club too.

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: ToulouseCruise
Date: 01 Jun 06 - 11:15 AM

Along with the communities of Conception Bay and Dildo, Newfoundland (Canada), this island province also has...

Come-By-Chance
Heart's Desire
Heart's Content
Paradise
Little Hearts Ease
Pecker's Point
Spread Eagle
Blow Me Down
Gayside


Also, in the province New Brunswick (also Canada), the Guinness Book of World Records gives the community name of "Lower North Branch Little Southwest Miramichi River" some sort of record, but I can't remember what it is.

Brian

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: Wesley S
Date: 01 Jun 06 - 11:05 AM

Cut and Shoot Texas

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: The PA
Date: 01 Jun 06 - 10:49 AM

Sorry did not read all the contributions, but my nomination is the next village us ours. Lickey End! Sorry, but it really exists, Junction 1 of the M42 UK, for those non-believers !

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: Peace
Date: 31 May 06 - 11:58 PM

Unalaska. Pronunciation. oo-nuh-LAS-kah

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: GUEST,fumblefingers
Date: 31 May 06 - 11:56 PM

I've always favored Dildo, in Newfoundland.

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 31 May 06 - 09:20 PM

Nettlebed
Upper Dicker
And the international favourite - Phuket.

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: GUEST,Pete Sumner
Date: 31 May 06 - 08:40 PM

What about Mavis Enderby in LINCOLNSHIRE....

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: GUEST,So how do you pronounce Unalaska?
Date: 31 May 06 - 02:39 AM

So how do you pronounce Unalaska? Is it YOOnalaska? Un-Alaska(rhyming with bun? OOnalaska? Or some other way?

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: Penny S.
Date: 19 May 02 - 06:23 AM

Snuffy, I'm always careful in representing accent, and what I've heard has mostly been less strong than Zoiren, but certainly going that way. I chicken out when referring to the place, and use it in full.

And on dialect, I was in a dress shop in Ciren, a middling sort of dress shop of the sort that is going to close soon for lack of business, but the owner isn't going to lose a lot out of it, when the elder of the other two customers, a mother and daughter, announced loudly and clearly in received standard English - they were the sort who say Cisseter - that they would certainly be coming back when it was time to do the daughter's wardrobe.

"Do the wardrobe" - to me this involves screwdrivers, drills, sandpaper, paint, that sort of thing - not dress shops. Then I realised. These were people who bought ALL their clothes at once, each year. These were the people who provided all the high quality goodies I get from the Ciren charity shops. They were NOT LIKE ME! Aliens.

I suddenly realised what class meant, and where I, as a teacher with an OU degree, belonged in the system. I thought I was middle class. But they thought they were.

Yikes. Thread creep. Sorry. I'll nip over to the other thread.

Penny

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: Haruo
Date: 16 May 02 - 02:47 AM

I didn't forget Duwamish, Genie, but there are two strikes against it: (1) it's not a town [river, Indian tribe—Federal nonrecognition notwithstanding, but not town] although its variant "Duwamps" was briefly considered for the town now known as Seattle, way back when, and (2) Carlton Fitchett didn't put it in his song (which I referenced also in an effort to musicalize the thread).

(For those not familiar with the area, the Duwamish River flows into Elliott Bay, Puget Sound, Pacific Ocean, at Seattle; the Duwamish are one of two Indian villages [Suquamish being the other] of whom Chief Seattle was a leader, and the Duwamish people have never been recognized as an Indian tribe by the federal government [until the latter days of the Clinton administration, but the Bushies immediately rescinded it] because the feds think they are the same as the Suquamish. Or maybe they don't think so, maybe they just think it's cheaper that way.)

Liland

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: Genie
Date: 16 May 02 - 02:25 AM

Liland, I'm posting to the original thread only because this post is in direct response to posts in that thread.
'Catters, if you're posting something really new, please post to Lilan's new thread.

Genie

Jerry Rasmussen,

Y' know, Steve Goodman (who was a senior at U of Ill. when I was in my first year of grad school) also mentioned Kankakee -- in City Of New Orleans.

Are you thinking of Keokuk, Iowa? Quincy, Ilinois, Keokuk, Iowa, and Hannibal, Missouri are referred to as "the tri-city area."
There's also Kokomo (is that in Illinois or where?), which is the title town for at least 2 songs, probably for the same reason you used Kankakee.

Liland,
You beat me to the punch on Puyallup , Sequim and Skookumchuk. But you forgot Duwamish.

Bill Kennedy
Thanks for correcting my spelling of Coalinga--I realized it was wrong almost as soon as I posted it-- and for the history of the town name. It IS pronounced "co-uh-LING-uh," isnt' it?

meadowmuskrat,
You left out my favorite New Jersey town name--Piscataway. (I have a story I dreamed up about how THAT town got its name!)

Genie

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: Haruo
Date: 16 May 02 - 12:38 AM

Since this is well over a hundred posts now (this should be #110, possibly even higher) I have started a Volume II. Please post further Favorite Town Names there. Thanks,

Liland

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: GUEST,meadowmuskrat
Date: 15 May 02 - 11:31 PM

New Jersey has Hackensack, Hohokus, and Hoboken within a few miles of each other, and I once released a squirrel in Nutley,which I thoughtwas a very considerate thing for me to do.

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: GUEST,ozmacca
Date: 15 May 02 - 11:24 PM

Here in DownUnderland we have more than our fair share of odd names - as I think someone else may have remarked, many of these are from near 'nuff renditions of native words. But how can anybody take some of my local S.E. Queensland place names seriously?

Burpengary - Beerwah - Beerburrum - Bribie -

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: DonD
Date: 15 May 02 - 11:10 PM

There used to be a town - village - crossroads not thirty or forty miles from New York City called 'Tilly Foster' but it seems to have disappeared.

And I was born in The Bronx (never just Bronx) although the modern practice is to address mail to Bronx, NY; no one would ever say it wothout the The.

And I'm looking out my window in Yonkers (What are Yonkers?) across the Bronx River at Tuckahoe, which I thought was a pretty distinctive name for a village until I discovered that there are seven other Tuckahoes in the US incliding another one right here in the state of NY!

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: Kim C
Date: 15 May 02 - 03:30 PM

How could I forget Soddy Daisy, right here in Tennessee ? And Bell Buckle, home of the famous Webb School, a co-ed boarding school.

Those of you who know Southern Indiana might have passed by Stone Head. There's actually a house with a stone head on a pedestal. Mister, who's from up thataway, told me the story of it once but I don't remember it right off.

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 14 May 02 - 04:07 PM

There's Hawes (rhymes with chores) in North Yorkshire ... but the women get upset if you go out on stage and shout "Good Evening Hawes!"

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 14 May 02 - 04:04 PM

Shame on you Bert and McGrath - Much Hadham is in Herts not Essex.

I've only skimmed through, but I didn't spot any mention of "The Wallops" (as in Nether Wallop and Middle Wallop.

Kitty

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: GUEST,Bill Kennedy
Date: 14 May 02 - 03:44 PM

'but it also left a rich and sometimes bizarre history.' including the above mentioned somewhere Coalinga. It is not as written previously Coalingua, though that would be odder, but it was a coal supply station for the railroad, otherwise known as Coaling station 'A', shortened to Coalinga.

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: GUEST,toribw at work
Date: 14 May 02 - 03:29 PM

Liland, it's one town: Rough and Ready. Doncha just love that? It was actually an independent nation for about three months from April - July of 1850. The residents seceded because of taxes on mining claims and lack of law enforcement. Apparently the citizens dissolved their tiny republic just in time for Fourth of July celebrations.

Mining wrecked a lot of things (and people) in California, but it also left a rich and sometimes bizarre history.

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: Haruo
Date: 14 May 02 - 01:18 AM

Is Rough and Ready, California, one place, or are Rough, California, and Ready, California, two places? (toribw?)

Liland

Subject: RE: Favorite Town names
From: richlmo
Date: 13 May 02 - 11:51 PM

In 30 minutes or so I can drive to Rock Rest, Wind-Blow, Old Hundred, Big Lick, Black Ankle, Roughedge or Finger. I could just as easily visit Shiloh, Houston, Palestine or even Cairo. I'll admit none of these are what you could call towns, but each has a state sign letting you know when you get there.( When you leave is usually on the other side of the post!) . I'm sure there is a very interesting history to go along with all of the names.