Favourite Place Names

[kevin]

To follow up Favourite Words.


Mine are

Ouagadougou (the capital of Burkina Faso, Upper Volta as was)

Milngavie (near Glasgow) pronounced Mull-guy

[Rob Hall]

Cycling around the country exposes you to lots of silly place names. A couple that spring to mind are "Nedging-with-Naughton" in Norfolk and "Pratts Bottom" in Kent.

[Des]

Clun.

[Con Murphy]

There's a Lickey End near Birmingham.

We're surrounded by Wallops here - Middle Wallop, Lower Wallop, Farleigh Wallop, Nether Wallop.

Then of course there are all those Puddles in the Piddle Valley (eg Tolpuddle and its Martyrs).

[Dayna]

On Lake Erie, north of Ohio, the island called Put-In-Bay.

We have Rome here in Ohio, but it's just a tiny town you can drive through in a couple minutes.


In southern Kentucky, there's a city called London. I could say I've been to London, but it's not the one I want.

Pennsylvania has the funniest place names. They have a town called Intercourse.

Those names you guys have are very interesting!

[Des]

Cockermouth.

[kevin]

Cockermouth.

F'naar F'naar.

Brilliant.

[CantSleepClownsWillGetMe]

Scone (pronounced Skoon)
Menstrie
Husband's Bosworth (better appreciated in a Scots accent)
Crook of Devon
Sanquhar (pronounced Sanker)

[Alannah]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... dents-tire of-name-games.hmtl

[Alannah]

sorry that ought to be


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... -game.hmtl

[Alannah]

Bloody Hell - I am so sorry it ought to be


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... -game.html

But I think you probably have got the picture by now...

[Gordon Moore]

Clun.

Apparently I have ancestors from Clun.

It's actually the area where Florence Nightingale became an anarchist and mother of Statistics! (Oh and nursed some nearly dead soldiers - but not in Clun itself of course. She was the original rebel without a cause, perhaps)

[Hugh Weldon]

I spent some time in Newcastle and still have fond affection for Spital Tongues. Seaton Delaval always sounded nice but the nearest I got was Whitley Bay.

Near my home town of Crosby there is a tiny village called Lunt. It was reported recently that graffiti artists have been busy on all the road signs with the obvious amendment. Well some scousers have a reputation to maintain I suppose.

Up the road from here a less crude but rather sillier campaign has been to add an acute accent to the final e in Barnét in an attempt to 'Frenchify' the area. While any French fule no the accent aigu there would be entirely superfluous and supererogatory. Which coincidentally are two of my favourite words...

[Tom McPhillips]

Pennsylvania has the funniest place names. They have a town called Intercourse.

Yes it's true - in Lancaster Co. PA (my home county) you can take a trip like this:


Achieving "Bird-In-Hand"
you can get to "Intercourse"
and you can either travel to "Paradise"
or if you take a wrong turning, "Blue Ball" might be your destination...

(These towns are all within a few miles of each other)

there are lost of postcards for sale in the tourist stores here with epithets like "You have to go through Intercourse to reach Paradise"

really...

I'm not making this up!

[Quintin]

Round here in Lincolnshire there are some wonderful names. I live in a village of 9 houses named Ashby Puerorum. Aside from New York (which takes 30 seconds to drive through), down on the Fens near Bardney there is Wasp's Nest. Then another favourite is Claxby Pluckacre (who could almost be a character out of some historical novel by Walter Scott). Near Spilsby there's a road sign which says "to Mavis Enderby and Old Bolingbroke" under which some wit wrote "a son".