![\"Plymouth](\"https:\/\/www.historic-uk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/plymouth-hoe-view.jpg\" "\\"Plymouth")
Basic geography lesson for non-UK readers.<\/p>\nBasic geography lesson for non-UK readers.<\/p>\n
It will undoubtedly come as a surprise to learn that \u2018England\u2019 consists of more than just \u2018London\u2019. Yes, I\u2019m looking at you, Americans. It actually has quite a few other cities, towns, and villages – thousands, in fact.<\/p>\n
However, although never originally intended to cater for primary school toilet humour, some places have strange names. For example, we have \u2018The Wallops\u2019, the \u2018River Piddle\u2019, \u2018Sheepy Parva\u2019 and \u2018Sheepy Magna\u2019, \u2018Wetwang\u2019, and so on. Then, for those whose minds have never left primary school, we have \u2018Shitterton\u2019, \u2018Cocks\u2019, \u2018Bitchfield\u2019, and many others.<\/p>\n
All of these have completely logical etymologies – \u2018Wallop\u2019 for example (the three villages that comprise \u2018The Wallops\u2019 are \u2018Upper Wallop\u2019, \u2019Middle Wallop\u2019, and \u2018Nether Wallop\u2019) is derived from the Anglo-Saxon or Old English words for stream (waella) and valley (hop), and is mentioned in the Domesday Book as \u2018Wollop\u2019. \u2018Shitterton\u2019 probably comes from the Old English word for sewer (scitere), meaning the place by the sewer. Even my own city of Nottingham was once called \u2018Snottingham\u2019 – or \u2018\u2019Snotengaham\u2019 – and that began in the 6th Century when it was a settlement called \u2018Snotta inga ham\u2019 (\u2018Snotta\u2019 was a person – a Saxon chieftain, whose people were the \u2018Snotingas\u2019 – \u2018inga\u2019 means \u2018belonging to\/the people of\u2019, and \u2018ham\u2019 means \u2018village\/homestead\u2019 in Anglo-Saxon). Nottingham appears in the Domesday Book as \u2018Snotingeham\u2019 and \u2018Snotingham\u2019. The ancients seemed happy to move vowels around and vary the consonants a bit without worrying about consistency, but you get the general idea. They were never intended as rude names, and they aren\u2019t<\/strong> rude names.<\/p>\n As an aside, when I was seven, I began to support Arsenal Football Club. I freely admit that it was the \u2018arse\u2019 part which attracted me, but I grew up, and by the time I was learning German and French at school the desire to laugh at words which \u2018sounded\u2019 like rude things but weren\u2019t had long since passed. Not so for many of my peers – a certain Mr Spence in my class found enormous humour in words like \u2018fuchs\u2019 (fox), and sought out every opportunity to say them loudly and with great emphasis.<\/p>\n Of course, and back to the present, in the last few years all hell has broken loose. Even place names that even once related to someone who lived in colonial times are under scrutiny. Most of the time they shouldn\u2019t be, but such is the mindset of people today. And that leads further in the direction this discussion is going.<\/p>\n On the south coast of England – and no, Americans, I don\u2019t mean \u2018London\u2019 – there is a coastal city known as \u2018Plymouth\u2019. It\u2019s in the county of \u2018Devon\u2019 (which is also not in \u2018London\u2019). There\u2019s no real problem with that name, because there\u2019s a Plymouth in the USA, too. However, the original one in the UK has a seafront on a limestone cliff that is called \u2018Plymouth Hoe\u2019. The word \u2018hoe\u2019 derives from the Anglo-Saxon word \u2018hoh\u2019, which means \u2018a sloping ridge in the shape of a heel or foot\u2019. The same Saxon word is in the root of another place name in the UK called \u2018Sutton Hoo\u2019 (the inconsistent spelling of the same word by the ancients, again). Plymouth Hoe is known as \u2018the Hoe\u2019 to people who live there. As you can see, there is nothing untoward in any of this, and nor has there been for centuries. The name simply related to the Anglo-Saxon word for the geographical feature it is built on.<\/p>\n Enter: Facebook. The refuge of those with primary school minds and intellects.<\/p>\n