Re: [NTLK] The "Greengrocers' Apostrophe" [OT]

Nice!

One of my favorite stories is the story of how Torpenhow Hill in England got
its name. My professor was explaining how one of the few things that -
linguistically - survives from a "conquered" (his phrase) people are place
names. This is the example he gave:

One group of Celts once invaded and occupied another group's territory. They
saw this hill and asked, "What do you call this?" The first group of Celts
said that they called it "Tor" (their word for "hill"). The second group of
Celts said, "Well, it's a hill, so we'll call it Torpen" ("pen" being their
word for hill).

Along came the invading Anglo-Saxons. They said, "What do you call this
place?" The Celts said, "Torpen." The Anglo-Saxons said, "We'll call it
Torpenhoh" ("hoh" being their word for hill).

Then came the invading Normans. And guess what? "Torpenhoh Hill".

Over the years, the "hoh" became "how". So now there's a hill in England
named, "Hillhillhill Hill".

My other favorite story is attributed to Winston Churchill. Upon being
reprimanded for ending a sentence with a preposition, he said "The silly
rule of prepopsitions is sometrhing up with which I will not put."

> There's a great joke in The Vicar of Dibley about that. Because, you
> know, the lord, he doth give us fuccor.
>
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Received on Mon Sep 3 23:16:32 2007