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As most of you on this forum probably are, I am fascinating by the English language and its origins.
One particular area that I've always found curious are place names. I've known for a long time that place names ending in chester, cester or caster come from the Latin for castle, and I know that places ending in "mouth" were because the villages that originally carried those names were situated at the mouth of a river. For example, I live in Monmouth County, named for Monmouth in Wales, a town situated on the Mon river.
I was curious about some others, though, and I looked them up. Here's what I found.
"Wich" or "wick" was a place where salt beds could be found, mostly near the sea, of course, but there are also others inland in England. They are the dried beds of ancient bays and seas.
"Hurst" refers to a grove of trees on a hill.
"Town" or "ton" is from the Old English "tun", which meant a walled or enclosed village and in turn seems to come from a Saxon word for fence.
"Bury" or "borough" is from "burh", a fort.
Place names ending in "by" were from the Danish for village. One example I found is that Derby was "Deor by" - the deer village.
Very interesting. I'm curious about "burg" and "ville". I'm going to go out on a limb and say that burg is a variation of "bury" and ville is a shortening of village? Did you see anything about them?
Very interesting. I'm curious about "burg" and "ville". I'm going to go out on a limb and say that burg is a variation of "bury" and ville is a shortening of village? Did you see anything about them?
No, but I would guess that to be the same as you do.
I did think of Edinburgh, Scotland, and how that is pronounced "Edinburra", which is likely close to the original "burh".
Now there's another thread idea--where DO all those miscelleanous "gh" combinations come from? You know, through, rough, ghost, laughter, daughter...
Now there's another thread idea--where DO all those miscelleanous "gh" combinations come from? You know, through, rough, ghost, laughter, daughter...
...Which, for some strange reason, put me in mind of a short story written years ago by Theodore Geisel (who started using his middle name, and became much better known as Dr. Seuss). The story was built around words that ended in "ough" but not pronounced the same way, and titled The Tough Coughs as he Ploughs the Dough.
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