Place names

Subject: RE: Place names
From: Penny
Date: 26 Apr 99 - 06:20 PM

And not far from Pluck's Gutter, there is a signpost referring to Ham and Sandwich.

Subject: RE: Place names
From: Liam's Brother
Date: 26 Apr 99 - 10:04 PM

If I can read and post on this thread, I know I'm not as busy as I think I am. Well, anyway, Tucker got Intercourse, Pennslyvania but there is always Point Pleasant, New Jersey.

Subject: RE: Place names
From: Tucker
Date: 27 Apr 99 - 12:31 AM

Hey Liam, there is Point Pleasant Ohio too! I missed that one but it was early and I was out of Whiskey. Honestly, an Atlas, especially of Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia will provide hours of entertainment to anyone with a twisted sense of humour (humor), like myself. I remember one time some people dropped by our firehouse and wanted to get directions to "Tootle-Lee- Do." No one knew where it was. The man asked to see a map so my Lt. took him inside to show him a state map. Some minutes later the man left and my officer came out and started rolling on the ground laughing. He didn't stop for 20 minutes. It seems the guy was looking for Toledo, Ohio. Well, we ohioans aren't perfect either. A friend of mine was stationed to California and told the cab driver he wanted to go to Valley Joe.......Valejo. Language is such a blast and our names for things are even better.....Which leads me to a new thread

Subject: RE: Place names
From: Frank in the swamps
Date: 27 Apr 99 - 01:13 AM

In the late nineteenth century Florida was a very wild place, cow hunters down here spent more time stealing cattle than tending them. A few miles northwest of Kissimmee (there's a placename for ya) a posse caught up with a fella called Needham Yates, or "Needs" in a scrub. They stood the poor guy up on a pine stump and shot him all to hell. The place is called Needs Scrub. The same posse got bogged down in marshy area further north near a creek which has since borne the name, Boggy Creek.

Also, Yeehaw junction, Fla.

Frank in the swamps.

Subject: RE: Place names
From: Tucker
Date: 27 Apr 99 - 02:30 AM

Thanks Frank, Florida is so cool. I was in New Smyrna ( another place name folks, nice history behind that) with my girlfriend. She took me to the park nearby where a plaque described how yankee invaders destroyed a local plantation. Anyway, to get away from war, New Smyrna was settled by Greeks, who sponge dived as they did in their native Greece. Many pretty girls there of Greek ancestary, Nice place to visit.

Subject: RE: Place names
From: Brian Hoskin
Date: 27 Apr 99 - 02:52 AM

Druggers End in Herefordshire, England.

Subject: RE: Place names
From: SeanM
Date: 27 Apr 99 - 03:17 AM

California and the other 'western' states in the US owe a great deal of bizzare and humourous names to the miners during the gold rush... Out in the desert, there's Squaw's Tit mountain (don't even WANNA know what's behind that one... this is still a pg-13 site, as I understand), Skull Valley (Nice place...stopped in for a soda at the drugstore once), and a plethora of other names, several of which I'm fairly certain stemmed from prolonged town council meetings in the local saloon.

But I'll leave those for the other westerners out there - at least the names aren't Welsh! (NOI BG);^)

M

Subject: RE: Place names
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 27 Apr 99 - 06:19 AM

Dai, actually it turns out that I do have better things to do than sit reading the gazetteer of my road atlas. You'll all have to wait till tomorrow now. Or the day after ...

Steve

Subject: RE: Place names
From: Penny
Date: 27 Apr 99 - 12:04 PM

I, on the other hand, had nothing better to do last night than scan two whole sheets (adjacent, with overlap) of the Ordnance Survey Landranger edition crossing the borders of Kent and Sussex, and come up with an A4 sheet of scrawled goodies, which I left at home, you'll be glad to hear. However, there are two Cackle Streets, Rockrobin, Buttons, Scragged Oak, Argos Hill and Hogtrough Hill to be going on with.

Subject: RE: Place names
From: Penny
Date: 27 Apr 99 - 12:13 PM

And there's Ugley, which, like Loose, has a women's institute. And near Cirencester, there's a place called Ready Token.

Subject: RE: Place names
From: Bert
Date: 27 Apr 99 - 01:57 PM

Penny, The 'A4' is on a different map.

There's a Messing and a Mucking and a Fobbing in Kent.

Then there's Mousehole (Pronounced Mouzel) in Cornwall.

Bert.

Subject: RE: Place names
From: VIXEN
Date: 27 Apr 99 - 02:41 PM

Well, I've just gotten back online after getting melted down on Monday, and I'm amazed that no one on this thread has mentioned the (perhaps fictional?) town of Morrow--immortalized in the Kingston Trio song of which I remember only "The last train to Morrow left last night."

Perhaps it's in the DT--I'm going now to look!

V

Subject: RE: Place names
From: Art Thieme
Date: 27 Apr 99 - 02:49 PM

84, Pennaylvania

Subject: RE: Place names
From: Curtis & Loretta
Date: 27 Apr 99 - 03:48 PM

I always like driving through Cosmos, Minnesota. The street names are: Saturn, Jupiter, Milky Way, etc, etc.

Loretta

Subject: RE: Place names
From: Frank in the swamps
Date: 27 Apr 99 - 05:27 PM

Yup Tucker, New Smyrna is nice. A local amusement down here is noting the people who pronounce it right, and those who call it "New Sumerna". Of course, many will say "Sumerna" IS the right pronunciation.

Forgot to mention Lake Helen. Local lore has it that there was no "Lake Helen" until the U.S. ordinance maps published it as such. Back in the days when it first appeared as a named lake on a topographic map they weren't going to print the correct name....Lake "Hell 'n Blazes", 'cuz that's where you had to go to find the damned lake.

Frank i.t.s.

Subject: RE: Place names
From: Barbara
Date: 27 Apr 99 - 05:59 PM

Margarita got most of my favorites, but there's still Amity and Sublimity, and the town of the Dalles (pronounced Dolls)here in Oregon. Puta Creek, Bend, Sisters, oh, and we also have the booming metropolis of Deadwood (pop.7).
Along this line, when I'm travelling I often put the names on the road sign together and imagine a character in a novel to match the names. For example, Proberta Gerber (near the Cal/Or border on I-5) is probably a single schoolteacher with spunk. And Henley Hornbrook is her suitor.
Blessings,
BArbara

Subject: RE: Place names
From: katlaughing
Date: 27 Apr 99 - 06:27 PM

Telluride, Colorado was a contraction of "To Hell You Ride" because of the terrain and what miners had to go through to get there. It is also supposed to be for terilium or some such mineral, but the other is some much more colorful. I had an English/Latin teacher who was widowed three times; each was a miner who'd made it big in Telluride. We often, cruel children, speculated as to how old Mrs. Worcester killed them off for their money. I later realized she was the best damn teacher I ever had and it was too late to tell her so.

There's always Big Butte, MT, someone always wants to pronounce it "butt", instead of "beaut". Laramie, Wy started out as La Ramie, very french sounding. Oh and just saw a bumper sticker today for the old Savageton Bar in Savageton, WY. Wonder how it got its name!

kat

Subject: RE: Place names
From: katlaughing
Date: 27 Apr 99 - 08:47 PM

Dear Peter Fisher: I am sorry I missed your post earlier about the jackalopes. Now, I want to tell ya a little tiny correction to yer misconception. It weren't any otha state than this here ole Wyomin' what discovered that rare and eloosive breed what is ta mixup of what the good lawd intended an antelope and jack rabbit to look like.

Anybody whos been thru Shoshone Wyoming and stopped in at the Yellowstone Drug an had one a thar famous, smooth and cool malts jist knows the very first one of them critters was found here, its picture tooken and put on one a them thar picture cards what ya kin send out to your'n kin. They's had the first stuffed one, heah, too, fer sure and we've proof down thar at the guv's office in old ShyAnne.

Now, we wont hold it aginst, ya, son, but we DO know them South Dakot'ns aren't content with the big old faces they mucked up them rocks with and they'd jist love to steal all o'the glory of this bounteous discoveree of such a rare hopper with horns. Aint' nothing like it in the hole world and we, here in Wyomin' are ready to stake our lives, homes, and hell, even throw in ar horse and saddle to prove we've the right a owning that first title of revelation about the jackalopes of Wyomin'. Which reminds me, have ya ever heard the one about the wild poodle herds of Wyomin'? Saw one m'self, I did, one dark and lonely night out on the highway to ShyAnne. Took me complete by surprise. Remind me ta tall it once o'thes edays; it's jist one more instanz of Wyomin' being ahead and in the runnin' fer finding new species on this here ole ball wax we call home.

Tumblin'weedkat (one of the many faces of the demented Katlaughing)

Subject: RE: Place names
From: Tucker
Date: 27 Apr 99 - 08:54 PM

Of All things, this was the topic of a radio show today from Huntington WV, I was in the neighborhood. They mentioned some that I could have slapped myself for forgetting and they told the origins (some hilarious) of the names. Here's some.......believe it or not...

Big and Ugly, Wv Aid, Ohio (named that because escaping slaves from the south were given Aid there) Getaway (ditto, an underground railroad station in Ohio. Friendship, Oh. Named because the indians and whites were friendly and intermarried (apparently VERY friendly). Mud, Ky Hurricane, WV Patriot, WV Old Soldier (didn't catch the state) Jasper, Ohio

We have many "Furnace and Ports" names here. Furnace for all the Iron furnaces that were built before the steel age. ( a note to environmentalist, back then they used charcoal, instead of coal. Most of the trees were decimated from our hills and forest then. I am happy to say they are back since they are a very renewable resource) My area now farms and exports a big amount of some of the finest black walnut, maple, hickory and oak of the world. Just an aside The Ports were because there were lots of stopping places for flat boats and later steamboats for weary travelers to get rested, get fed, get drunk and get...... oh well

Gallipolis, Ohio. When a bunch of frenchmen were scammed in a land deal in their homeland for cheap land here the govenment set aside the site of Gallipolis (Ferry) as a place for them to settle. Early American Homeless. Nice town by and by. They have a beutiful Gazebo that every April is the site of a Union re-enactment. I hear the Rebs been showing up lately.

Firebrick Ky I can't believe it's not butter Ohio just joking

Subject: Lyr Add: SLOW TRAIN (M Flanders, D Swann)
From: Penny
Date: 28 Apr 99 - 03:42 AM

In a swathe of three Ordnance Survey maps, (no A4, Bert!) from the Thames to the Channel, across Kent and Sussex, leaving out a few I couldn't quite bring myself to put before this audience, all the furnace names, and some which are just farm names, there's

Morning Dawn, Heart's Delight, Moon's Green and Pizien Well,
Three Cups Corner, Pricklegate, Starnash and Honeyhills,
Terrible Down and Bouncer's Bank, Mumpumps and Muddles Green,
Trolliloes and Hazard's Green, Snarkhurst Wood and Plackett's Hole,
Nether Toes and Upper Toes, Scrapsgate and Brownbread Street,
Steven's Crouch, Glydwish, Socknersh and Peppering Eye,
Grandturzel, Snagshall, Bachelor's Bump,
Dean's Bottom and Great Job's Cross,
Horse Eye and Hankham, Crapham Down and Monkyn Pym,
Pigtail Corner, Pratling Street, Modest Corner and Walter's Green,
Shover's Green, Warmlake, and Hushheath,
Julian's Brimstone, Nizels and How Green.

And, specially for the Mudcat, Cattering Wood and Catts Green.

Or, just out of the area, an address we turned down for my father's accountancy practice, Forger's Green.

Or there's Flanders and Swann, again, on the "SLOW TRAIN."

Miller's Dale for Tideswell...
Kirby Muxloe...
Mow Cop and Scholar Green...

Nor more will I go from Blandford Forum and Mortehoe
On the slow train from Midsomer Norton and Mumby Road.
No churns, no porter, no cat on a seat
At Chorlton-cum-Hardy or Chester-le-Street.
We won't be meeting again On the Slow Train.

On the main line and the goods siding
The grass grows high
At Dog Dyke, Tumby Woodside
And Troublehouse Halt.

The sleepers sleep at Audlem and Ambergate.
No passenger waits on Chittening platform or Cheslyn Hay.
No one departs, no one arrives
From Selby to Goole, from St Erth to St Ives.
They've all passed out of our lives
On the Slow Train, on the Slow Train...

Cockermouth for Buttermere...on the Slow Train,
Armley Moor Arram,
Pye Hill and Somercotes...on the Slow Train.
Windmill End

It was with great delight that I found that the real Troublehouse Halt lay just down the road from Cirencester where my parents moved, close to one of the sources of the Thames.

And I have no idea what most of the names mean, and I don't want to know, because it is the sound of them that is the attraction. It always puzzles me, with such a great choice of names, that authors who invent placenames somehow don't quite make them sound real.

The Shambles: you omitted Piddletrenthide, which is one of my favourites in that valley.

Subject: RE: Place names
From: The_one_and_only_Dai
Date: 28 Apr 99 - 03:47 AM

Brits (especially Steve P.) - didn't John Betjeman write a great poem about the Byways of Old England - when we went to Scarborough by way of Gerrard's Cross or something?

Time to prove yer well-readness...

Subject: RE: Place names
From: Penny
Date: 28 Apr 99 - 11:40 AM

Think it was Chesterton...

Subject: RE: Place names
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 28 Apr 99 - 12:31 PM

Ah, the rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road. What's the excuse round your way, Dai?

Subject: RE: Place names
From: Mark Roffe
Date: 28 Apr 99 - 01:26 PM

In the late 1800's, the San Franciso board of supervisors needed to name the streets for a new area of town (along the Haight's Golden Gate Park "panhandle.")
They couldn't resist the opportunity to immortalize their own names - Baker, Lyon, Clayton, Cole, Shrader, etc. were the supervisors, and are the street names.

Subject: RE: Place names
From: Bert
Date: 28 Apr 99 - 01:56 PM

Penny,

What a great list. If I didn't know better I would have said that you made them up.

I remember once in the Barking Tech. Rag Magazine (yes Barking IS also a real place) They made up a version of "The Rock Island Line" called "The Tilbury Line". It went ... Dagenham, Rainham, Purfleet, Grays, The Good Lord's coming gonna see me again.....

And you all remember that "Tilbury Docks" is Rhyming slang for socks.

Back on this side of the pond there's a place in Colorado called "Telluride" which according to local folk lore is derived from the expression "To hell you ride".
and in Pennsylvania there is a "Peach Bottom" which became the nickname of one of our gang who, while drunk, foolishly challenged someone to "Bite my ass"

Bert.

Subject: RE: Place names
From: Bert
Date: 28 Apr 99 - 04:46 PM

Whoops, repeating Kat with "Telluride" Sorry I must have scrolled too fast past your message.

Subject: RE: Place names
From: Charlie Baum
Date: 29 Apr 99 - 12:21 AM

In Virginia: Stuart's Draft, Mouth of Wilson, Meadows of Dan, King and Queen Court House
In West Virginia: Sinks of Gandy
In Maryland: Dames Quarter, Crapo, Havre de Grace
In New York: Second Milo
In Connecticut: Podunk
In Vermont: Westminster West (NOT West Westminster)
In Oregon: Milton Freewater (sounds like a car dealership to me, but it's a town, near Walla Walla, Washington) In Kentucky: Bailey's Switch, Science Hill, Dog Walk
In the thumb of Michigan: Bad Axe and Grind Stone City

--Charlie Baum

Subject: RE: Place names
From: Bruce from Bathurst
Date: 29 Apr 99 - 02:13 AM

The challenge, of course, is to incorporate place names into a song. One of my favourite choruses comes from 'On A Queensland Railway Line' which reads:

Bogantungan, Rollingstone Mungar, Murgon, Marathon, Guthalungra, Pinkenba, Wanko, Yaamba, ha ha ha.

The song also refers to other Queensland railway stations with names of Aboriginal origin. One verse is as follows:

Males and females high and dry Hang around at Durikai, Booramugga, Djarawong, Giligulgul, Wonglepong.

I find I can only sing it early in the night - otherwise chaos theory takes over my tongue.

Bruce

Subject: RE: Place names
From: Banjer
Date: 29 Apr 99 - 02:24 AM

Ahhh! Shades of Hank Snow, "I've Been Everywhere". If you've never heard this one you owe it to yourself to give a listen!

Subject: RE: Place names
From: alison
Date: 29 Apr 99 - 03:05 AM

Hi,

More Aussie ones... in Queensland there is the town of 1770 (Seventeen seventy). In NSW you've got Nevertire, Come by chance, Dead horse creek, Mount Horrible, Wee Waa, just flicking through a map here......

Slainte

alison

Subject: Lyr Add: THE ROLLING ENGLISH ROAD (G.K. Chesterton
From: The_one_and_only_Dai
Date: 29 Apr 99 - 03:57 AM

OK, I found it myself.

The Rolling English Road

by G. K. Chesterton

Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,

The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.

A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire,

And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire;

A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread

The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head.

I knew no harm of Bonaparte and plenty of the Squire,

And for to fight the Frenchman I did not much desire;

But I did bash their baggonets because they came arrayed

To straighten out the crooked road an English drunkard made,

Where you and I went down the lane with ale-mugs in our hands,

The night we went to Glastonbury by way of Goodwin Sands.

His sins they were forgiven him; or why do flowers run

Behind him; and the hedges all strengthening in the sun?

The wild thing went from left to right and knew not which was which,

But the wild rose was above him when they found him in the ditch.

God pardon us, nor harden us; we did not see so clear

The night we went to Bannockburn by way of Brighton Pier.

My friends, we will not go again or ape an ancient rage,

Or stretch the folly of our youth to be the shame of age,

But walk with clearer eyes and ears this path that wandereth,

And see undrugged in evening light the decent inn of death;

For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen,

Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.

---

[home] Back to G.K.Chesterton's Works on the Web.

---

Last modified: 21st April, 1998

Martin Ward, Computer Science Dept., University of Durham, Durham DH1 3LE,UK.
Email: [e-mail]

---

I've left the references at the bottom so you can see where I got it from. Thanks, Martin.

Subject: RE: Place names
From: Penny
Date: 29 Apr 99 - 07:32 AM

Don't know about Messing, (for the sailors again, as in "about in boats"?) Bert, but Fobbing and Mucking are in Essex. OK, Thameside, close bound to Kent in the Peasant's Revolt, and the Early English Settlement, but Essex.

There was a Swede who studied placenames (a relation of that Wallenberg who did so much for prisoners during the war, and disappeared), who was enamoured of the idea that the "ing" placenames were formed from some physical characteristic of the early inhabitants. Thus, Bobbing, in Kent, was first settled by people who bobbed about; Freezingham, by folk with frizzy hair, (Frisians, it is now thought). This is not now supported, though some such names may have been a nickname of the leader of such groups. What that makes of Fobba, Mucka and Messa, I can't imagine. Or Barka.

And of course, we have names supplied by reversed movement, such as Gibraltar, Philippines, Pennsylvania. Thanks for the Chesterton, Dai, I found I hadn't got it when I looked last night.

There is a poem by Alan Garner, which speaks of a Dai shepherd, who left Llanfair PG for somewhere less tough, and found an NZ place which is longer, but I can't find that, either.

My class were doing some work invoving net connections with Horseshoe Bend, somewhere out West. They enjoyed this considerably, and then, in our river study on the diddy little Darent (more of a creek to some of you) were spotting horseshoe bends in that, with great fun.

Subject: RE: Place names
From: The_one_and_only_Dai
Date: 29 Apr 99 - 08:34 AM

Penny - do you mean Taumatawhakatangahangakouauouautamateaturipukapakikimongohoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu? 'Coa that's in NZ. I don't know why that didn't occur to me earlier...

Subject: RE: Place names
From: Wolfgang
Date: 29 Apr 99 - 08:43 AM

Glenelg, near Adelaide, Australia, for it's a palindrome. For placenames, it's the longest I know of.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Place names
From: Sam Pirt
Date: 29 Apr 99 - 08:50 AM

One of my favorite place names is in france. Its the name of a little village called 'Plog Off' no its not an insult to you but I will say this, it is absolutly true!!

Bye, Sam

Subject: RE: Place names
From: Bert
Date: 29 Apr 99 - 09:08 AM

Penny,

My book says that the 'ing' ending is Saxon meaning 'The people of' I think Barking was "Boerca's people" or something like that.

I'll have to look up Messing again. I think it was somewhat upstream from Mucking. I used to drive to work through Fobbing and Corringham every day. And you're right they were prominent at the start of the Peasant's revolt along with Brentford.

Bert.

Subject: RE: Place names
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 29 Apr 99 - 12:22 PM

The "ing" in Birmingham certainly means "family" or "people": Birm's people's settlement. Don't know about Birningham, Alabama, though ...

Subject: RE: Place names
From: The Shambles
Date: 29 Apr 99 - 01:21 PM

There is another thread for this. Place Names 2

Subject: RE: Place names
From: blisspoint (inactive)
Date: 29 Apr 99 - 07:23 PM

Quaking Houses, Co Durham, UK

Subject: RE: Place names
From: Bruce from Bathurst
Date: 30 Apr 99 - 12:38 AM

Hey Banjer,

Was Hank Snow's song 'I've Been Everywhere' written by Geoff Mack, and did it list places in the US? If so, it's one of at least four versions he wrote. US, UK and New Zealand versions followed the success of the original Australian one, sung by Lucky Starr in the mid '60s.

If it wasn't, and didn't, then it probably isn't!

Bruce

Subject: RE: Place names
From: Sonny in Tenn
Date: 01 May 99 - 12:59 AM

You should be so lucky to live in the middle of West Tennessee. My husband is from the big community of Sweet Lips..(Chester Co.) which is a skip and a hop from Finger, Tenn. Then meander on to Blue Goose, Skullbone, and Lizard's lick.... I am from the big city (like, yeah) of Beech Bluff...from all the Beech trees that grew on a small bluff out in the middle of the country. We have Paris, Tenn also and Moscow... It's about midnight, so hope the names are spelled fairly correctly! Sonny

Subject: RE: Place names
From: KOOS VAN RIET
Date: 01 May 99 - 05:15 AM

Well it's something! I do have a blues show on radio by myself since 1987, but I could not stop listening to the show of June 18th! My compliments and keep on bluesin'

If you want to sent information please send it to:
[e-mail]
Till then.

Subject: RE: Place names
From: Elizabeth (inactive)
Date: 01 May 99 - 11:32 PM

Some more Australian contibutions.....

Nowhere Else, Paradise and Snug in Northern Tasmania. Obum Obum, Ma Ma Creek and Tent Hill Upper in SE Queensland.

Cheers, Elizabeth.

Subject: RE: Place names
From: Ian
Date: 05 May 99 - 07:59 AM

Lots of really nice names round where I live, especially on the Essex/Herts border. As well as Much Hadham (and Little Hadham) there's also Ugley (Essex) and Nasty (Herts).

Subject: RE: Place names
From: Cluin
Date: 30 Aug 05 - 01:06 AM

Dildo, Newfoundland.

Subject: RE: Place names
From: GUEST,noddy
Date: 30 Aug 05 - 09:50 AM

On Orkney there is Twatt and reputedly....... Upper Twatt.

Subject: RE: Place names
From: Tam the man
Date: 30 Aug 05 - 02:02 PM

other places in UK are

bonkle. lankirkshire Scotland
bottoms. west yorkshire
catbrain. avon
lower assenden. oxfordshire
north piddle. worcestershire
ogle. northumberland
pant. shorpshire
pratt's bottom. kent
slaggyford. northumberland
twatt/upper. twatt orkney
undy. gwent(Wales)

These are real places

Tam

Subject: RE: Place names
From: Leadfingers
Date: 30 Aug 05 - 02:45 PM

Egypt is WSW of Andover !! (Hampshire UK)

Subject: RE: Place names
From: Leadfingers
Date: 30 Aug 05 - 02:47 PM

OOPS Its ESE actualy - And Moscow is just a bit East of Kilmarnock !!

Subject: RE: Place names
From: Leadfingers
Date: 30 Aug 05 - 02:48 PM

And Thats Another 1oo !!!