This video has SO MUCH information! Some is hilarious, some shocking and some just fascinating! There is so much to the names of the cities in England. This video actually covers EVERY single City in England! We know the USA has stolen (we prefer taken) so many of these place names but what do they mean? The history alone in this video is incredibly cool but there's so much more. Let us know if you knew the origin of your own city. Did you learn something else new in this episode? And don't miss our special announcement at the beginning. Cheers to learning being fun and to Natasha's inner 12 year old of inappropriateness! Thank you SO much for watching! If you enjoy our content, please consider subscribing to our channel, it is the BEST way to support our channel and it's FREE! Also, please click the Like button. Thank you for your support!
Natasha and Debbie Rob is great , his knowledge of laguages is remarkable. You need to watch his English origins videos. How german, latin etc languages are easy too be translated
Agreed - I am subscribed to him - I am a classical & modern linguist and I learn huge amounts from his videos. He currently lives in Germany, so don't be fooled by the locations where he records.
his time spend trying to research, u should say -- not knowledge. his knowledge of hostoric linguistics is lacking, and i dont can even count the occasions where is wrote long texts citing correcting the mess he is stating. my professor always said "etymology is no science, its esoterics", but i dont agree, as long as one does not forcefully try to have connections where there are non, i see no problem in it -- if u base urself on existing laws of soundchange and correct meaning of older forms of language/foreign language words
@@eyeofthaskyI agree, the Rob isn't perfect, as he isn't, as far as l know, a trained linguist. Your point would be better received, if your English grammar was checked before you posted. And you didn't use sounds symbols instead of words.
British people still use the word 'ford' to speak of a shallow place in a river that you can walk across. There is even a triangular national road sign with the word on it to warn that cars may have to drive through a few inches of water.
@@monkee1969 mmm... it's a generally accepted convention, especially in military term, that "fording a river" , "ford the river", "forded a/the river" are all valid terms and the meaning(s) are well understood even if the grammar is a bit sus...
That's possibly of germanic origin since the German word "Furt" means exactly the same thing. Frankfurt is just the "Furt" of the Franks/Franconians crossing the river Main. Schweinfurt is the "Furt" of pigs also crossing the river Main. Erfurt is also a town at a river - the river Gera. There are many names of places citing "Furt" in Germany. And there's the town of Herford in North Rhine-Westfalia where the river Aa joins the river Werre.
I found out the other day that Cambridge was founded because Oxford was crime ridden and chaotic. Who’d have thought that a place of learning would have such nefarious characters? 😂
@@TheRealRodentTrue. The Winnie-the-Pooh bear I bought at the Disney store there predates the A. A. Milne character by over 3932 years. And 4 months. He's not even musty. But very short of brain. (Yes, the "Disney" store in question was founded in 1432 BC, based on the Greek god of Desamae, and has changed little since.)
I live in Lincoln and an American tourist recently asked me, with a straight face, why we named our city after one of your Presidents. I patiently pointed out that the city is a LOT older than the man and we ended up having a really nice conversation about Lincoln's fascinating and, to some surprisingly, ancient history. 😊
Gibraltar applied to be a city in 2022 and the application was refused. Until someone found in the archives that Gibraltar was granted city status by Queen Victoria in 1842 Its status was re-affirmed on 29 Aug 2022
I think one of the most interesting aspects of the older names is that they're not really names at all, they're just descriptions. Going back a thousand or more years, most people would rarely if ever leave their own little village, but you might need to describe it to a traveller. Compare that to most American cities which were founded/incorporated and given the names of some place in England the founder happened to like. Rob's videos are great - please do more!
Take Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch (actual place in Wales in Welsh) is basically St Mary's Church in the Hollow of the White Hazel near a Rapid Whirlpool and the Church of St. Tysilio near the Red Cave, in English. So the entire name of the place is literally a description of where the place is!
And whatever you're typing into autocorrects to a capital 'F' too, right? I noticed it did that for me. That should definitely be changed. Does anyone fancy a class action? 🤓🤔
Yes and when I lived over there, and in western Canada, they have a lot of places that say "creek" or "bluff", which we don't tend to use in the UK, even though they are English words.
Rob is great, he also does a podcast Words Unravelled with Rob and Jess Zafarris. Jess is an American language expert based in the US. Do watch it, they have a personal chemistry and are very funny. A lot of words have a sexual meaning or connection, and Rob is a serial blusher. People keep a count of how many times Jess makes Rob blush. Now my home town is Guildford. It is on a ford on the river Wey. The Guild means golden named after yellow flowers or a bank of sand running up to the top of the North Downs. One of my Grandfathers party tricks was to fill his pockets with pebbles and walk under the river at this point to the other side. This ford was important in the medieval ages as it was on the route of the pilgrims way route to Canterbury, as in Canterbury tales. The downs are a range of hills (Dun is hill in Old English) as Rob mentioned.
Liverpool is said to have been originally coined by Welsh traders with regard to a pool which abounded in a type of edible seaweed called larver (which is something of a delicacy in Wales) and they named the place Lyferpwl (the "modern" Welsh name for the city is Lerpwl). The small community around the pool grew and in 1207 was granted a Charter by King John which allowed a weekly market to be held in "Lyverpul" and, like a lot of other British cities, the township expander and absorbed local towns and hamlets, such as Everton, Garston, Walton - which are now just districts of the city of Liverpool.
Brit here. I used to live in Hornchurch. The local church had a bull's head on it. With horns. Now I live in Worthing, a seaside town on the South coast. When the tide is out, the sun beats down on the seaweed. In summer, it creates QUITE a stench. Or TANG. The name, I'm told, is from Whoa ! Tang ! Except, pronounced in Anglish, Nordish, Francish, Whatevish... Cheers, keep 'em coming !
"Ford" meaning to cross a river is still in common usage. The military talk about the "fording capability" of vehicles, meaning the depth of water they can drive through without stalling or floating away. There's a ford across the river Goyt behind my house, and traces of a Roman road that probably led down to it were found under our house when renovation work was done in the 1970s. "Goyt" is from Middle English "gote" (a watercourse or stream). My nearest town is Stockport (built on seven of those hills that so fascinate Tasha, just like Rome...🙄) Earliest recorded name is "Stokeport" in 1170, "Stoke" being from Old English "Stoc" (a hamlet) and "port" (a marketplace). Contrary to popular belief, the "port" can't mean sea port or river port because the river Mersey on which it's built has never be navigable at this point. Other variations on the name have been Stopford and Stockford, which might imply that the town was built at a ford over the Mersey. One of these survives in the term "Stopfordian" meaning anything or anyone from Stockport: ex-pupils of Stockport Grammar School call themslves Old Stopfordians. The river Mersey gets Its name from the Anglo-Saxon "mǣres" (relating to a boundary) and "ēa" ( river), so "boundary river", which it still is, since it marks the boundary between the historic counties of Cheshire and Lancashire, although these days it's within the administrative "county" of Greater Manchester (make your own "bigger hills" jokes, Tasha 😉 ) which only goes back to 1974. It's still in Cheshire in the postal system and in our hearts, mind you...
.... we even had an information film / advert on the telly years ago warning about how to deal with the crossing of a ford by car ..... After one emerges - put one's foot gently on the brakes while moving to dry off the discs / shoes .... otherwise you could be involved in a deadly crash.. oe-er !
My village has an ford. (Yes; that was diberate.) Has roadsigns, and it's even on some maps! Once, when it had been raining almost biblically, the road was entirely submerged. Almost 11 inches of water! The horror! (The road is completely avoidable, so no real problem. It's a small village. I find excitement wherever.)
I am Nottingham born and bred and it is still my home city. Yes, we were taught at secondary school (high school) the origin of Nottingham's name as well as a lot of other cities. In Nottingham there is an area called Sneinton - the home of Snayne another Norseman as well as Snot. Vikings navigated the river Trent from the area of Hull along to what is now Nottingham in their long ships.
I live in Gillingham in Kent, "Gillingham comes from the Old English 'ham' meaning a 'village, homestead' with 'ingas' as the 'people of, people called after' combined with a personal name; therefore, a 'homestead/village of the people of Gylla' - a war lord who screamed and shouted as he led his men into battle." So Gillingham is known as The Home of Shouting Men!
Rob is great. He did another video about old English letters no longer used that I've mentioned before. It explains the whole "ye olde" , for example "LOST LETTERS OF THE ALPHABET: 9 letters we stopped using"
I haven't seen it but always liked the old elongated f-shaped letter thats pronounced as a SS, or strong S, bit like the german B-shaped letter. But its still one of those letters you're likely to come across on old gravestones etc.
Rob’s video on Anglish is good. English without the French, Latin and Greek infiltrations. In Lost Letters he tells of a letter that looked like Y but was pronounced TH. Still hanging round on pub signs such as Ye Olde Speckled Hen.
We have things called a Ford where you literally drive through the river stream in smaller areas, sometimes have a pedestrian bridge next to them. People love to speed through them during flash floods which occasionally leads to their cars stopping working. There is some great videos of this.
There is a place in England that uses three old English words, all of which mean hill, it is called TORPENHOW HILL. It is just north of the LAKE DISTRICT.
The "sal" in Salford that comes from the sallow tree has another interesting etymological branch. Salicylic Acid was derived from the bark of the sallow tree, and Salicylic Acid is commonly known as Aspirin.
Aspirin is not salicylic acid, nor is it derived from willow bark. Aspirin is a synthetic acetosalicylic acid, more effective as a neuralgic/anti-inflammatory than salicylic acid and less risky to ingest.
@@RichWoods23 I was simplifying it for brevity. Acetylsalicylic acid from which acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin) was developed was derived from the willow tree, but, yes, well done, you look clever now.
@@RichWoods23 I would say you are both, both right and wrong. :o) Salicylic Acid is derived from a number of plants but principly Willow Bark; "salicin" is the Latin word for Willow. It has been used for more than 4000 years as a medicine. Hippocrates is known to have used Willow bark for pain relief. In 1899 a modified version " actylsalicylic acid" was registered manufactured and sold by Bayer using the trade name Aspirin.
I now live in a tiny village named 'Walcote' and there are at least 2 version of the reason it is so named. A 'cote' was originally a small thatched house or home, and we had quite a few of those, but only one now remains - that is nor contentious, but there are at least 2 explanations of the 'Wal' element. That word could be from Anglo-Saxon meaning water source or well (we have 2 large brooks running through the village) or it could be from the Celtic or Brythonic word 'Welsh' which originally meant foreigners or immigrants. So it could have one of two meanings, I prefer the first. Although the Black Death hit the area quite badly in the 12th century, and there are several Plague villages nearby which were wiped out by the disease, killing many workers, so the village could have been built to house imported or 'foreign' labourers - remember 'foreign' could mean people from the next town in those days.
Liverpool takes its name from old English - 'lifer' meaning thick or muddy, and 'pol' meaning pool or creek. The area of the Mersey on which the city stands, while very tidal, is also quite silted, with large sand banks that stretch from the river mouth up past Runcorn and Widnes, which are around 12 miles upstream. When the tide goes out, the sand banks are exposed and become a very thick consistency, interspersed with pools of water - hence 'thick/muddy pool'. The city has been built on much of what once was the river as the docks were expanded (one of the worlds oldest tidal locked docks, the Old Dock, can be found under what is now the Liverpool One shopping centre, which a half mile from the river and was built at the original pool).
@@andrewmerner7928 I thought it was 'wide nose'? There's another thought that it could have been 'wooded nose' as the 'nose' is not particularly wide. Runcorn gets its name from old-Saxon (as the Mersey formed the boundary between the Viking held lands to the north and the kingdom of Mercia to the south) meaning 'wide cove'.
More to do with the proximity with the 'Brecon Beacons' probably, their training ground, Herefordshire is to die for, it's beautiful, check it out girls? Love the content! x Just a UK 'x' the kiss!
If etymology (history of word development, etc) interests you, Rob and Jess Zafarris do a podcast/video series about this kind of thing. "Words unravelled" I think it's called. Jess is American, so there are often comparisons between American English and British English.
tis Ange this was really fun. That was a lot to unpack n yes Id probably have to rewatch it a few times for it to really sink in. Did love it though. cheers
i saw Page and Plant at Glastonbury in 1995. far from my first gig i was already a burned out mess from half a decade of festivals, 90s partying and abusing my brain chemistry. it was 30 degrees, full sunlight when they played. they were still flawless
I live in Essex, we have Wickford, Chelmsford near us and several still existing fords that you can drive or 'ford' through except when they are flooding.
Milton Keynes is a new town designed on the American grid system., started in the 70’s. Within the designated area was a small and old village called Milton Keynes and it retained its name for a few decades. Interestingly it is now known as Middleton.
There are still quite a few fords that are for vehicular use in the UK and we have road signs for them - it's literally just a triangle with the word "FORD" written on it. The road you are driving on will suddenly encounter a river that you drive through.
So interesting to hear the origins and history of the names of places that are so familiar and take for granted ,without thinking too much about their names . Some l knew but many more l didn’t. Lots of information given in an entertaining way . Enjoyed this and would like the rest of the uk and the American one as well ( Manchester, Bristol)
I live in Ripon (and I'm from York). I know that Ripon is a city, although a very small one, but it's wild when it's mentioned by people who don't live here! Most people have never heard of it.
Ripon was very nice when I visited in the 1980s. I lived in York for a decade and regret not visiting more of the surrounding areas when I had the opportunity.
Hi Natasha & Debbie. Preston is my birthplace, in fact I was born right in the centre of it at the Mount Street Hospital a Catholic Hospital run by the Sisters of Charity of our Lady Mother of Mercy. The hospital opened in 1877 and remained a hospital till 2003.
Slyvania is an old Roman term for a forest, I don't know what Penn means though. Edit: So, I Googled it and Pen is a Celtic word for hill. However, interestingly (or at least it is to me) - the Pennsylvania in America isn't named after this one. The one is America is a forest that was given to a man called William Penn by Charles II as a way of paying a debt. So one is "Penn's Forest" and one is "Forest on a Hill", but they have identical names.
@@VillaFanDan92 Pennsylvania comes from the village of Penn Street in Bucks. the Quakers from this area settled that region in the americas. the lead Quaker in question was William Penn, the local landowner who gave the village Penn Street its name. i'm a local to Penn and it's local history to me.
It is 15:55 Friday. Other than wash and dry my work uniform, I have done nothing all day other than watch a lot of your videos back to back - I did temporarily forget to eat 😅 - in a random order. I have fallen for your quick wit, bad puns and contagious laughter. I started following a few days ago and I am hooked on your content. The premiere this morning was the first I’ve seen, and I really enjoyed it. It’s a bonus that the time really works well for me because I work 07:00 - 17:30 Monday - Thursday, so I wake up Friday morning looking for some comic relief, and I’ve finally found my new staple.
Regarding the Normans' difficulties with "Sn-", hence (S)Nottingham, they fortunately did not have the same problem with "Sc-", to the great relief of the citizens of Scunthorpe.
Romans did a lot of abbreviation as writing with styli and waxed tablets was hard graft. Hence inscriptions like C. JUL CAESAR. So Lindum Colonia. And that's why there are two L's in Lincoln.
Hi Natasha and Debbie, we have 1500 rivers throughout the United Kingdom and quite a lot of cities, towns and even villages are named after them, like mine Burton upon Trent ( Trent being the River ) I love how both of you are so interested in my country, it would be lovely for you to come here and see it all for yourselves. There used to be a lot of different tribes ( similar to Scotland with the different Clans ) so many of the names come from the name of the leader or the owner of the land plus Britain has been occupied by quite a few different foreign people over the centuries hence the differences. Love your channel and your humour too. ❤️❤️
Yes, we use "to ford" as a verb! Thanks for reacting to this, as someone born in Borough but now in the New Castle, I knew about those two and a few others, endings like ton, ham, chester etc, but many of the prefixes of these places were completely new knowledge to me. Much love x.
Since you're doing your shows on UK and Germany, you might go on and do the same explanatory video on German City and Places names, since they off course share so much with the English City name video and the guy from the video also knows about the Germanic languages as such ...
Nice to see my city mentioned as, in comparison to others, it is new city from a town. Whenever I hear Wells I instantly think of 'The Baby Eating Bishop of Bath and Wells' from Blackadder. I am English and most of this is new to me.
My town where I live in England is called Oldham. It’s believed to be derived from the Old English aid combined with the Old Norse hoimi or holmr, meaning promontory or outcrop, possibly describing the town’s hilltop position.
Hi from Britland again; I really enjoyed this reaction vid! I love the Viking period of our history (especially being a Yorkshireman!) Plus I learned an awful lot alongside you... great reaction, lots of fun...thanks.
Rob Words is a great channel, dude knows his stuff. I think I may have been one of your recommenders for his channel :) Around 19:45 is interesting with local dialect changing the names. Bottuw instead of bottle... or dropped the t as well, to say boh-oo instead of bottle. Google becomes Googoo. Then ther's Sum Fink instead of Something. Nuffin instead of Nothing. Tur-ul instead of Turtle. I found that part of Rob's video fascinating to realise that speaking incorrectly actually changes the place names. Wonder how many of those unknown place name origins like London, are in fact a corruption caused by mispronunciation.
I come from Bristol and have heard that description of the derivation of the name, I must admit as a Bristolian the use of the L instead of a W is a daily practice. I am told, although unsure whether it is true or not, that Boston in the USA has an accent that is somewhat similar to Bristol. There are many connections between Bristol UK and the North east USA all revolving around the fact that it was John Cabot who sailed from Bristol that rediscovered North America, not Columbus, he actually only found the Caribbean Islands. Now to place names, the cities in most cases have names that have been simplified over the years, many village names have not gone through that process so remain more like their original. Names Like Nempnett Thrubwell in Somerset, Charlton Mackrell in Somerset, Norton Malreward just south of Bristol. Many British names are centuries if not thousands of years old.
John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto) was an Italian explorer sailing under the auspices of the English King Henry VII in the area of Newfoundland. He said a person could walk on the surface of the water due to the number of cod in the Grand Banks. Cabot explored north of any future US territory. He was preceded by the Vikings by at least 500 years. They had a settlement, L'anse aux Meadows, on the north shore of Newfoundland island. There are copies of maps of Greenland, Labrador and Newfoundland even expanding as far as the Caribbean in the Danish Royal Library that preceded even them. The maps were made by Sigurd Stefansson, an Icelandic scholar, from even earlier Viking knowledge passed down to him. Columbus was a "Johnny-come -lately".
Rob, was reasonably correct, about mo castles before Willy The B. Invaded. As most walled fortifications were Burghs, i.e. fortified towns. But 4 deceased castles had been built prior to him turning up, claiming the throne. "The term pre-Conquest castles refers to the castles built in Norman style in England before the 1066 Norman conquest of England. There are only four such castles known, all of them constructed in the 11th century and now ruined. "Castles in England built before 1066" The following 4 pages are in this category, out of 4 total. This list may not reflect recent changes: Wikipedia Clavering Castle, Ewyas Harold Castle, Hereford Castle, Richard's Castle"
I've heard some American off-roaders talking about fording rivers in their 4x4s, so it is a term used there. There are 1490 rivers in the UK with a total length (including tributaries) of 124,000 miles.
The word "ford" for a shallow river crossing also exists in other Germanic languages. For instance, in German it is spelled "Furt", hence the name of the city of Frankfurt in central Germany means "ford of the Franks", which was a former shallow river crossing of the river Main (pronounced MINE) there in the historic lands of the Franks. Many towns and later cities developed around these strategic river locations.
I'm firmly of the belief that London's name is of Celtic origin, the latter part,-"don", coming from "dùn", the word for "fort" that still in Irish and Scottish Gaelic, and the "Lon" part from the Celtic word for "pool" that also constituted the origin of the name of Ireland's capital, Dublin. That name, originally "Dubh-linn", came from a black-looking pool in the river meaning "black pool", bedide which was built an Iron Age fort and subsequently a Norman Castle. This view is reinforced by the fact that the Thames has a reach called the "Pool of London", beside which was built a Norman castle called the Tower, propably on top of an earlier fortification.
I have only lived in one city (Leeds) but went to the grammar school in Lancaster (I recall learning the school was founded in 1472, but now its history has been found to go back to between 1235 and 1256). I'm currently in west Cumbria and the nearest city is Carlisle. There are still some small roads that cross streams without a bridge, and we still call them fords - sometimes they become impassable in floods.
As always I enjoy learning and laughing along with you two. Hope you have a nice weekend! P.S. Did you get a chance to take a look at the video link I sent?
Derby is pronounced Darby simply because that's how 'er' was pronounced before the Great Vowel Shift. Rob's Words has a good video on the GVS. So, words that had become 'fixed' before the GVS - such as most place names - usually kept their old spelling (the pronunciation didn't change). Sometimes the pronunciation did change - in 'merchant' for instance, even though the surname was respelled - Marchant (note the er/ar thing). It is likely that early map-makers were just as confused (more so?) as we are. There are still a few -er words that even Americans pronounce -ar - sergeant, for instance.. But note that the surname is Sargent.
Helloooo Natasha & Debbie i fully enjoyed this video very intertsting one at that keep going these are the types of videos i Love Love watching stuff like this keep on going 😃👍❤
@@TheNatashaDebbieShow i mean every word Love your content don't want you to think i don't when i do plus you both are really funny to watch as in Fun 😂😃😘😁👍
Not seen his channel before but thoroughly enjoyed that. I knew the origins of some of the names including my own city. There are fords allover the place. Drive, walk, ride your horse through! If you're interested in rivers, and underground rives, of which we also have many, so and look up the Megatron in Sheffield. Plenty of explores on here, and it's pretty impressive. There are now proper tours run down there, for the intrepid!
I'm from Bolton in Lancashire. This is from the old English bothl-tun, meaning settlement with a dwelling. Although most locals call it "Bouten" which is Lancashire dialect. We are have the river Croal running through the town, and yes the UK has lots of rivers. My wife is from Cwm Bran in South Wales, this means Valley of the Crows.
I am from Hull and am an amateur history. Recently I have been researching the origins of the city. The settlement was founded by the monks of the nearby Abbey of Meaux as a port for them to export wool; a small village grew up next to this port called Wyke. Incidentally, there is a college in Hull called Wyke. Edward I used the port of Wyke as the place to bring in and assemble his supplies and troops for his campaigns against the Scots (see Braveheart) and it was this use of the port and his attachment to it that meant he renamed it King's Town. The upon Hull bit was probably just added to distinguish from other Kingstons like the one in London. The reason it is almost always known as Hull these days seems to come from the Civil War. In the White Harte Inn in the city, a number of noblemen and parliamentarians met and decided to depose the monarch and establish a Republic. You can still go into the room where this happened now, there is quite an atmosphere in there... so the Kingston part of the name was probably dropped at this time to show the city's defiance of the monarch. The first actions of the Civil War took place in the city as well when King Charles I approached the Beverley Gate, the main entrance to the city, because he needed to enter and access his armoury which was in the city. The symbolic beginning of the war, and the city's defiance, could be seen when the gates were slammed in the King's face and he was forced to lay siege to the city now known, albeit unofficially, as just Hull!
I live near Oxford. Recently, various different lofesize ox statues have appeared all over the city. There is one outside the hospital I go to every week.
Love the etymology of place names. I happen to live in Surrey, the neighbouring county South West of Greater London. The name Surrey is derived from Sūþrīge (or Suthrige), meaning "southern region" (while Bede refers to it as Sudergeona) and this may originate in its status as the southern portion of the Middle Saxon territory.
There's probably about 1500 rivers in the UK but most are tiny compared to Continental USA and would probably be considered Creeks over there. Why so many? GB is an island with a long mountain ranges running up its spine, bulging up in the West and dominating the North and West - it also rains a lot. That rainwater has to go somewhere and gravity tells it to head for the sea. Hills often have accompanying valleys which make convenient ducts for gravity-crazed water - hence fifteen hundred rivers. If you like rivers and etymology, Country Life has a great article on their website called "From the Box to the Yox - how did our rivers get their names?"
Please , please, please look into Chester it has loads of Roman ruins, roming all about. Even some shops have roman ruins in shops and all over the place. It has a complete Roman walls they are 2 miles round, they are definitely worth the walk. In the shopping area they are a second leave covered walk way and they have shops. The Cathedral witch is well worth a long visit, it's one of the few Henry 8th left alone. It has a lovely field at the back, if it's a good day you can eat the sandwiches from M&S. You would love it, I is easy to get a train, you change trains there. You can travel to Ludlow by train it has a amazing castle in the centre, it is extremely old Ludlow is famous for its castle. St Lawrence's it is the central and well worth a visit/stay. Ludlow is also known for fantastic food, there is a great food hall at the North of the town. You can also visit A stunning small castle there My favourite view in all of England is from the parking are near the church, it takes your breath away. You can walk around a lot of ruins. It is thought to be the oldest castle in England it was owned by one of only 3 pre- Norman, Norman Castle. Well worth a look around, it has a separate bell tower and is extremely old.
I live near Lancaster a town called Morecambe, i don't know if you know the comedy duo Morecambe and Wise Eric was born here and he changed his name from Bartholemew to Morecambe 😊
I was born, raised and still live in Nottingham. I've known since the 1960's that the original spelling was Snotingahaem. The Normans came and built a Castle on a sandstone hill to the west of the original settlement (which is roughly where St. Mary's Church is). The place inbetween the Anglo-Saxon settlement and the Norman one is The Old Market Square (still there to this day) which was divided in two to allow for peaceful trading. Near to St Mary's Church is the district of Sneinton (still called that and is pronounced without the I) which harks back to Snot's people. The Normans, who found the Sn combination difficult dropped the S in both cases, Nottingham stuck but Notintone didn't. There is a Square in Sneinton called Notintone Place where the founder of the Salvation Army was born, William Booth. Before Snot's people arrived, the place was called 'Tig Guocobauc' meaning in the Celtic language (Brythonic) 'Cave Dwellers' and is still refered to as the City of Caves. The Sandstone that underlays Nottingham is easily dug out, and the way that it formed meant it had structural strength, and to this day there are about 800 man made caves in Nottingham.
The Domesday book, created by the Normans to audit the country they had just taken over, is really useful as it gives placenames as they were 1000 years ago and we can see the evolution. On the subject of the Normans, there may not of have been castles before them, but there were plenty of hill forts, such as Old Sarum.
@@debbie8674 I was born in Beverly just outside “ULL” ( that’s Hull but we drop our”h”) Kingston Upon Hull’s coat of arms has 3 crowns on it as the City has always been loyal to the monarchy (especially during the English Civil War & King Charles 1st)
I live in a village called Lowton. The “ton” appertains to farm, the “Low” does not mean a low point, it conversely means a “mound” or small hill. So therefore Lowton means Farm on the mound.
I must add that Kingston-Upon-Hull also housed the Kings Armory at the citadel near the river Hull. Hull at the time had 5 gates to protect the whole city.
YAAAY !!!!..I`m also from Derby, geologically interesting as the hill at the top of my road is the last `bump' in the `Pennine chain.' also known as Englands `backbone', a visual geological formation down the centre of the country.
This video has SO MUCH information! Some is hilarious, some shocking and some just fascinating! There is so much to the names of the cities in England. This video actually covers EVERY single City in England! We know the USA has stolen (we prefer taken) so many of these place names but what do they mean? The history alone in this video is incredibly cool but there's so much more. Let us know if you knew the origin of your own city. Did you learn something else new in this episode? And don't miss our special announcement at the beginning. Cheers to learning being fun and to Natasha's inner 12 year old of inappropriateness! Thank you SO much for watching! If you enjoy our content, please consider subscribing to our channel, it is the BEST way to support our channel and it's FREE! Also, please click the Like button. Thank you for your support!
Annnd you focus on Ipswich, when you should be focusing on Norwich, by far the biggest city in the area, older and vastly more historically important.
@@SJ-GodofGnomes21 . and it's got some bloody good curry houses too! 🤣
We weren't focusing on anything, merely brought up a conversation we had earlier that day
Roger was born in Norfolk
Manchester
Natasha and Debbie Rob is great , his knowledge of laguages is remarkable. You need to watch his English origins videos. How german, latin etc languages are easy too be translated
Agreed - I am subscribed to him - I am a classical & modern linguist and I learn huge amounts from his videos. He currently lives in Germany, so don't be fooled by the locations where he records.
I agree totally. I love the origins of the language and he does this so well
❤!
his time spend trying to research, u should say -- not knowledge. his knowledge of hostoric linguistics is lacking, and i dont can even count the occasions where is wrote long texts citing correcting the mess he is stating. my professor always said "etymology is no science, its esoterics", but i dont agree, as long as one does not forcefully try to have connections where there are non, i see no problem in it -- if u base urself on existing laws of soundchange and correct meaning of older forms of language/foreign language words
@@eyeofthaskyI agree, the Rob isn't perfect, as he isn't, as far as l know, a trained linguist.
Your point would be better received, if your English grammar was checked before you posted. And you didn't use sounds symbols instead of words.
British people still use the word 'ford' to speak of a shallow place in a river that you can walk across. There is even a triangular national road sign with the word on it to warn that cars may have to drive through a few inches of water.
@@monkee1969 mmm... it's a generally accepted convention, especially in military term, that "fording a river" , "ford the river", "forded a/the river" are all valid terms and the meaning(s) are well understood even if the grammar is a bit sus...
Or feet. In a flash flood a few years ago near me, a postman's van was stranded at a suddenly deep ford; he got out and was swept away to his death...
@@ruthmeb Poor man!
That's possibly of germanic origin since the German word "Furt" means exactly the same thing. Frankfurt is just the "Furt" of the Franks/Franconians crossing the river Main. Schweinfurt is the "Furt" of pigs also crossing the river Main. Erfurt is also a town at a river - the river Gera. There are many names of places citing "Furt" in Germany.
And there's the town of Herford in North Rhine-Westfalia where the river Aa joins the river Werre.
@@MichaelBurggraf-gm8vl I'm sure you're right. Many words in English come from Old German.
In Oxford, "New College" was built in 1240.
Probably because even to this day it remains the most modern thing actually in Oxford.
I found out the other day that Cambridge was founded because Oxford was crime ridden and chaotic. Who’d have thought that a place of learning would have such nefarious characters? 😂
@@TheRealRodentTrue. The Winnie-the-Pooh bear I bought at the Disney store there predates the A. A. Milne character by over 3932 years. And 4 months.
He's not even musty. But very short of brain.
(Yes, the "Disney" store in question was founded in 1432 BC, based on the Greek god of Desamae, and has changed little since.)
Bloody upstart; it will never catch on!
Isn't that wonderful?
I live in Lincoln and an American tourist recently asked me, with a straight face, why we named our city after one of your Presidents. I patiently pointed out that the city is a LOT older than the man and we ended up having a really nice conversation about Lincoln's fascinating and, to some surprisingly, ancient history. 😊
Gibraltar applied to be a city in 2022 and the application was refused.
Until someone found in the archives that Gibraltar was granted city status by Queen Victoria in 1842
Its status was re-affirmed on 29 Aug 2022
I think one of the most interesting aspects of the older names is that they're not really names at all, they're just descriptions. Going back a thousand or more years, most people would rarely if ever leave their own little village, but you might need to describe it to a traveller. Compare that to most American cities which were founded/incorporated and given the names of some place in England the founder happened to like.
Rob's videos are great - please do more!
Take Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch (actual place in Wales in Welsh) is basically St Mary's Church in the Hollow of the White Hazel near a Rapid Whirlpool and the Church of St. Tysilio near the Red Cave, in English. So the entire name of the place is literally a description of where the place is!
The song from The Sound of Music that begins, “Climb every mountain. Ford every stream…” is the reason I know what ‘ford’ means 🎶😊
And whatever you're typing into autocorrects to a capital 'F' too, right?
I noticed it did that for me. That should definitely be changed.
Does anyone fancy a class action? 🤓🤔
They're great. A good sense of humour and the ability to put up with our British way of speech and humour, Go girls. I love you both!
I never knew ford wasn't in use in America. We even have road signs telling us a ford is coming up.
Yes and when I lived over there, and in western Canada, they have a lot of places that say "creek" or "bluff", which we don't tend to use in the UK, even though they are English words.
Yes, I was going to mention the road signs but you beat me to it.....
I can usually tell by the blue and silver badge... 😼
I suppose, logically, England should have two cities called Manchester. Possibly with one slightly bigger than the other.
Rob is great, he also does a podcast Words Unravelled with Rob and Jess Zafarris. Jess is an American language expert based in the US. Do watch it, they have a personal chemistry and are very funny. A lot of words have a sexual meaning or connection, and Rob is a serial blusher. People keep a count of how many times Jess makes Rob blush.
Now my home town is Guildford. It is on a ford on the river Wey. The Guild means golden named after yellow flowers or a bank of sand running up to the top of the North Downs. One of my Grandfathers party tricks was to fill his pockets with pebbles and walk under the river at this point to the other side.
This ford was important in the medieval ages as it was on the route of the pilgrims way route to Canterbury, as in Canterbury tales. The downs are a range of hills (Dun is hill in Old English) as Rob mentioned.
Liverpool is said to have been originally coined by Welsh traders with regard to a pool which abounded in a type of edible seaweed called larver (which is something of a delicacy in Wales) and they named the place Lyferpwl (the "modern" Welsh name for the city is Lerpwl). The small community around the pool grew and in 1207 was granted a Charter by King John which allowed a weekly market to be held in "Lyverpul" and, like a lot of other British cities, the township expander and absorbed local towns and hamlets, such as Everton, Garston, Walton - which are now just districts of the city of Liverpool.
Brit here. I used to live in Hornchurch. The local church had a bull's head on it. With horns.
Now I live in Worthing, a seaside town on the South coast. When the tide is out, the sun beats down on the seaweed. In summer, it creates QUITE a stench. Or TANG. The name, I'm told, is from Whoa ! Tang ! Except, pronounced in Anglish, Nordish, Francish, Whatevish...
Cheers, keep 'em coming !
It’s so interesting… I like the way how history and humor are served and are brought “to the table”.
Thank you Natasha&Debbie . 👋☀️
Glad you enjoyed! Thanks for the kind words!
"Ford" meaning to cross a river is still in common usage. The military talk about the "fording capability" of vehicles, meaning the depth of water they can drive through without stalling or floating away. There's a ford across the river Goyt behind my house, and traces of a Roman road that probably led down to it were found under our house when renovation work was done in the 1970s. "Goyt" is from Middle English "gote" (a watercourse or stream).
My nearest town is Stockport (built on seven of those hills that so fascinate Tasha, just like Rome...🙄) Earliest recorded name is "Stokeport" in 1170, "Stoke" being from Old English "Stoc" (a hamlet) and "port" (a marketplace). Contrary to popular belief, the "port" can't mean sea port or river port because the river Mersey on which it's built has never be navigable at this point. Other variations on the name have been Stopford and Stockford, which might imply that the town was built at a ford over the Mersey. One of these survives in the term "Stopfordian" meaning anything or anyone from Stockport: ex-pupils of Stockport Grammar School call themslves Old Stopfordians.
The river Mersey gets Its name from the Anglo-Saxon "mǣres" (relating to a boundary) and "ēa" ( river), so "boundary river", which it still is, since it marks the boundary between the historic counties of Cheshire and Lancashire, although these days it's within the administrative "county" of Greater Manchester (make your own "bigger hills" jokes, Tasha 😉 ) which only goes back to 1974. It's still in Cheshire in the postal system and in our hearts, mind you...
.... we even had an information film / advert on the telly years ago warning about how to deal with the crossing of a ford by car ..... After one emerges - put one's foot gently on the brakes while moving to dry off the discs / shoes .... otherwise you could be involved in a deadly crash.. oe-er !
My village has an ford. (Yes; that was diberate.)
Has roadsigns, and it's even on some maps!
Once, when it had been raining almost biblically, the road was entirely submerged.
Almost 11 inches of water! The horror!
(The road is completely avoidable, so no real problem. It's a small village. I find excitement wherever.)
I am Nottingham born and bred and it is still my home city. Yes, we were taught at secondary school (high school) the origin of Nottingham's name as well as a lot of other cities. In Nottingham there is an area called Sneinton - the home of Snayne another Norseman as well as Snot. Vikings navigated the river Trent from the area of Hull along to what is now Nottingham in their long ships.
Ay up me duck from another Nottinghamian
@@sarahgreen653 Ay up Sarah What part you from - me born in the owd Medduz now Bestwood Village. Tara duck
This is Carlisle Cumbria 33.33 calling in to say hi . We have 1500 rivers ,22 of them are classed as major rivers 🤣🤣😍🩷🇬🇧
I live in Gillingham in Kent, "Gillingham comes from the Old English 'ham' meaning a 'village, homestead' with 'ingas' as the 'people of, people called after' combined with a personal name; therefore, a 'homestead/village of the people of Gylla' - a war lord who screamed and shouted as he led his men into battle." So Gillingham is known as The Home of Shouting Men!
Rob is great. He did another video about old English letters no longer used that I've mentioned before. It explains the whole "ye olde" , for example
"LOST LETTERS OF THE ALPHABET: 9 letters we stopped using"
I haven't seen it but always liked the old elongated f-shaped letter thats pronounced as a SS, or strong S, bit like the german B-shaped letter. But its still one of those letters you're likely to come across on old gravestones etc.
@@BogusDudeGW that is in the video 👍
I live in Hertfordshire which comes from:
Hart = deer
ford = shallow river crossing
shire = place
It's so interesting.
Rob’s video on Anglish is good. English without the French, Latin and Greek infiltrations. In Lost Letters he tells of a letter that looked like Y but was pronounced TH. Still hanging round on pub signs such as Ye Olde Speckled Hen.
The number of hills in the UK and Ireland named after breasts would shock you. Both Saxons and Celts seem to have been obsessed.
I immediately thought of the "Paps of Jura" on an island off the West coast of Scotland.
CIII (without the PO) should celebrate his new reign by granting titty status to the best of them. 🙊
😂😂😂
We've got the Grand Teton mountains in the US. They were named such by the French-Canadian explorers who thought that they looked like breasts.
There is a hill called Lord Herefords Knob (Twmpa to give its Welsh name) in South Wales.
We have things called a Ford where you literally drive through the river stream in smaller areas, sometimes have a pedestrian bridge next to them. People love to speed through them during flash floods which occasionally leads to their cars stopping working. There is some great videos of this.
Be careful when driving through the FJORD you might squash a Norwegian !!😤
One doesn't literally drive through a ford. One actually does.
Amazing, such an informative show. Thanks Natasha and Debbie
Really enjoyed this one, thank you N&D! Your sense of humour shone bright today! I have my calendar marked for 8/8 👍
There is a place in England that uses three old English words, all of which mean hill, it is called TORPENHOW HILL. It is just north of the LAKE DISTRICT.
Of course there's a Tom Scott video about that... and there's a bit of a debunk iirc.
That was fun. I love Rob's channel. Great history and humour.
The "sal" in Salford that comes from the sallow tree has another interesting etymological branch. Salicylic Acid was derived from the bark of the sallow tree, and Salicylic Acid is commonly known as Aspirin.
Aspirin is not salicylic acid, nor is it derived from willow bark. Aspirin is a synthetic acetosalicylic acid, more effective as a neuralgic/anti-inflammatory than salicylic acid and less risky to ingest.
@@RichWoods23
I was simplifying it for brevity. Acetylsalicylic acid from which acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin) was developed was derived from the willow tree, but, yes, well done, you look clever now.
@@RichWoods23 I would say you are both, both right and wrong. :o)
Salicylic Acid is derived from a number of plants but principly Willow Bark; "salicin" is the Latin word for Willow. It has been used for more than 4000 years as a medicine. Hippocrates is known to have used Willow bark for pain relief.
In 1899 a modified version " actylsalicylic acid" was registered manufactured and sold by Bayer using the trade name Aspirin.
I now live in a tiny village named 'Walcote' and there are at least 2 version of the reason it is so named. A 'cote' was originally a small thatched house or home, and we had quite a few of those, but only one now remains - that is nor contentious, but there are at least 2 explanations of the 'Wal' element. That word could be from Anglo-Saxon meaning water source or well (we have 2 large brooks running through the village) or it could be from the Celtic or Brythonic word 'Welsh' which originally meant foreigners or immigrants. So it could have one of two meanings, I prefer the first. Although the Black Death hit the area quite badly in the 12th century, and there are several Plague villages nearby which were wiped out by the disease, killing many workers, so the village could have been built to house imported or 'foreign' labourers - remember 'foreign' could mean people from the next town in those days.
Liverpool takes its name from old English - 'lifer' meaning thick or muddy, and 'pol' meaning pool or creek. The area of the Mersey on which the city stands, while very tidal, is also quite silted, with large sand banks that stretch from the river mouth up past Runcorn and Widnes, which are around 12 miles upstream. When the tide goes out, the sand banks are exposed and become a very thick consistency, interspersed with pools of water - hence 'thick/muddy pool'. The city has been built on much of what once was the river as the docks were expanded (one of the worlds oldest tidal locked docks, the Old Dock, can be found under what is now the Liverpool One shopping centre, which a half mile from the river and was built at the original pool).
Makes sense. Blackpool and Dublin were both on rivers that were joined by dark, peaty rivers.
Viking's named Widnes wide mouth
@@andrewmerner7928 I thought it was 'wide nose'? There's another thought that it could have been 'wooded nose' as the 'nose' is not particularly wide. Runcorn gets its name from old-Saxon (as the Mersey formed the boundary between the Viking held lands to the north and the kingdom of Mercia to the south) meaning 'wide cove'.
We live in herefordshire and had no idea! Great watch, so maybe wye [!] the 'SAS' are based at Hereford, fun fact!
More to do with the proximity with the 'Brecon Beacons' probably, their training ground, Herefordshire is to die for, it's beautiful, check it out girls? Love the content! x Just a UK 'x' the kiss!
If etymology (history of word development, etc) interests you, Rob and Jess Zafarris do a podcast/video series about this kind of thing. "Words unravelled" I think it's called. Jess is American, so there are often comparisons between American English and British English.
I bought her book Words from Hell. I hope she updates it some day to include more Brit words...
I can indeed confirm, I am watching of my own volition & not in fact under duress. Loving the content ladies xx
Excellent!! 👍🏻👍🏻😆😆
tis Ange
this was really fun. That was a lot to unpack n yes Id probably have to rewatch it a few times for it to really sink in. Did love it though. cheers
i saw Page and Plant at Glastonbury in 1995. far from my first gig i was already a burned out mess from half a decade of festivals, 90s partying and abusing my brain chemistry. it was 30 degrees, full sunlight when they played. they were still flawless
I live in Essex, we have Wickford, Chelmsford near us and several still existing fords that you can drive or 'ford' through except when they are flooding.
Hi Ladies Kingston upon Hull is to us Hullians as we are called is just called ULL 😂.
Rob is great. His video on how French words came into the English language and got altered is fascinating.
I enjoy watching these early morning shows, Wake up take meds, and open a can of Monster while still in bed.
Proud to be from Milton Keynes 🇬🇧 my first concert I saw was Queen at our MK Bowl in 1982 then in 1985 I saw U2 both were amazing
Me too and I was also at The Bowl for the Queen concert! Saw Bowie and Genesis as well.
Milton Keynes is a new town designed on the American grid system., started in the 70’s. Within the designated area was a small and old village called Milton Keynes and it retained its name for a few decades. Interestingly it is now known as Middleton.
Perhaps the reason 'Truro' seemed familiar to you, is because you've heard somewhere that Truro is the only city in the entire county of Cornwall.
Its also the only city in the UK that begins with a T - good pub quiz tip there :)
Also Roger Taylor moved there when he was about 7ish...
There's a truro in America and was featured in men in black when Tommy Lee Jones uses a satellite to zoom in on his wife who lives in Truro
There are still quite a few fords that are for vehicular use in the UK and we have road signs for them - it's literally just a triangle with the word "FORD" written on it. The road you are driving on will suddenly encounter a river that you drive through.
Thanks for uploading, ladies. Learnt a lot from this one.
So interesting to hear the origins and history of the names of places that are so familiar and take for granted ,without thinking too much about their names . Some l knew but many more l didn’t. Lots of information given in an entertaining way . Enjoyed this and would like the rest of the uk and the American one as well ( Manchester, Bristol)
Yes we say “ford” as in a place to cross a brook. There are places where you drive through a shallow stream.
I live in Ripon (and I'm from York). I know that Ripon is a city, although a very small one, but it's wild when it's mentioned by people who don't live here! Most people have never heard of it.
Ripon was very nice when I visited in the 1980s. I lived in York for a decade and regret not visiting more of the surrounding areas when I had the opportunity.
Hi Natasha & Debbie. Preston is my birthplace, in fact I was born right in the centre of it at the Mount Street Hospital a Catholic Hospital run by the Sisters of Charity of our Lady Mother of Mercy. The hospital opened in 1877 and remained a hospital till 2003.
There's a village/hamlet between Bristol and Bath called Pennsylvania. Just a bit smaller than the one in USA!
Slyvania is an old Roman term for a forest, I don't know what Penn means though.
Edit: So, I Googled it and Pen is a Celtic word for hill. However, interestingly (or at least it is to me) - the Pennsylvania in America isn't named after this one. The one is America is a forest that was given to a man called William Penn by Charles II as a way of paying a debt.
So one is "Penn's Forest" and one is "Forest on a Hill", but they have identical names.
And Washington, Philadelphia and New York are all in the North East of England, along with Canadian counterparts Toronto and Quebec!
@@VillaFanDan92 Interesting - thanks!
@@VillaFanDan92 Pennsylvania comes from the village of Penn Street in Bucks. the Quakers from this area settled that region in the americas. the lead Quaker in question was William Penn, the local landowner who gave the village Penn Street its name. i'm a local to Penn and it's local history to me.
It is 15:55 Friday. Other than wash and dry my work uniform, I have done nothing all day other than watch a lot of your videos back to back - I did temporarily forget to eat 😅 - in a random order. I have fallen for your quick wit, bad puns and contagious laughter. I started following a few days ago and I am hooked on your content. The premiere this morning was the first I’ve seen, and I really enjoyed it. It’s a bonus that the time really works well for me because I work 07:00 - 17:30 Monday - Thursday, so I wake up Friday morning looking for some comic relief, and I’ve finally found my new staple.
That's wonderful!! Thank you so much!!
Regarding the Normans' difficulties with "Sn-", hence (S)Nottingham, they fortunately did not have the same problem with "Sc-", to the great relief of the citizens of Scunthorpe.
😂 I was born in Nottingham so am rather pleased, but I see your point
Romans did a lot of abbreviation as writing with styli and waxed tablets was hard graft.
Hence inscriptions like C. JUL CAESAR.
So Lindum Colonia.
And that's why there are two L's in Lincoln.
Hi Natasha and Debbie, we have 1500 rivers throughout the United Kingdom and quite a lot of cities, towns and even villages are named after them, like mine Burton upon Trent ( Trent being the River ) I love how both of you are so interested in my country, it would be lovely for you to come here and see it all for yourselves. There used to be a lot of different tribes ( similar to Scotland with the different Clans ) so many of the names come from the name of the leader or the owner of the land plus Britain has been occupied by quite a few different foreign people over the centuries hence the differences. Love your channel and your humour too. ❤️❤️
Yes, we use "to ford" as a verb! Thanks for reacting to this, as someone born in Borough but now in the New Castle, I knew about those two and a few others, endings like ton, ham, chester etc, but many of the prefixes of these places were completely new knowledge to me. Much love x.
Since you're doing your shows on UK and Germany, you might go on and do the same explanatory video on German City and Places names, since they off course share so much with the English City name video and the guy from the video also knows about the Germanic languages as such ...
I'm from Your favourite Ipswich. We are now in the Premier League after 22 years out.
Congrats!!
me too Rob, and looking forward to the 1st match against the liver shaped muddy pool on the 17th.
Commiserations.
Nice to see my city mentioned as, in comparison to others, it is new city from a town. Whenever I hear Wells I instantly think of 'The Baby Eating Bishop of Bath and Wells' from Blackadder. I am English and most of this is new to me.
The area not the hare 😂 I'm glad he clarified that lol because I was wondering why have I never heard that lol
the fact he needed to clarify that probably says more about the crazy history of the British monarchy than anything else.
My town where I live in England is called Oldham.
It’s believed to be derived from the Old English aid combined with the Old Norse hoimi or holmr, meaning promontory or outcrop, possibly describing the town’s hilltop position.
Hi from Britland again; I really enjoyed this reaction vid! I love the Viking period of our history (especially being a Yorkshireman!) Plus I learned an awful lot alongside you... great reaction, lots of fun...thanks.
Awesome! Thank you!
Lincoln resident here!! Enjoyed the video, hopefully more to come 😊 xx
And now you know why anything to do with construction/civil engineering etc in the region has the "Lindum" logo on it. 😊
Rob Words is a great channel, dude knows his stuff.
I think I may have been one of your recommenders for his channel :)
Around 19:45 is interesting with local dialect changing the names.
Bottuw instead of bottle... or dropped the t as well, to say boh-oo instead of bottle.
Google becomes Googoo.
Then ther's Sum Fink instead of Something.
Nuffin instead of Nothing.
Tur-ul instead of Turtle.
I found that part of Rob's video fascinating to realise that speaking incorrectly actually changes the place names.
Wonder how many of those unknown place name origins like London, are in fact a corruption caused by mispronunciation.
That was very interesting to watch. British born and bred and i didnt know any of this.😊
Great video ladies❤I reckon you might need to find a video on silly and rude British town names...I nominate Six Mile Bottom, Wetwang and Cockermouth😊
I come from Bristol and have heard that description of the derivation of the name, I must admit as a Bristolian the use of the L instead of a W is a daily practice. I am told, although unsure whether it is true or not, that Boston in the USA has an accent that is somewhat similar to Bristol. There are many connections between Bristol UK and the North east USA all revolving around the fact that it was John Cabot who sailed from Bristol that rediscovered North America, not Columbus, he actually only found the Caribbean Islands. Now to place names, the cities in most cases have names that have been simplified over the years, many village names have not gone through that process so remain more like their original. Names Like Nempnett Thrubwell in Somerset, Charlton Mackrell in Somerset, Norton Malreward just south of Bristol. Many British names are centuries if not thousands of years old.
John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto) was an Italian explorer sailing under the auspices of the English King Henry VII in the area of Newfoundland. He said a person could walk on the surface of the water due to the number of cod in the Grand Banks. Cabot explored north of any future US territory. He was preceded by the Vikings by at least 500 years. They had a settlement, L'anse aux Meadows, on the north shore of Newfoundland island. There are copies of maps of Greenland, Labrador and Newfoundland even expanding as far as the Caribbean in the Danish Royal Library that preceded even them. The maps were made by Sigurd Stefansson, an Icelandic scholar, from even earlier Viking knowledge passed down to him. Columbus was a "Johnny-come -lately".
There is a Taunton in Massachusetts named after the one in Somerset (where I live!)
Rob, was reasonably correct, about mo castles before Willy The B. Invaded. As most walled fortifications were Burghs, i.e. fortified towns. But 4 deceased castles had been built prior to him turning up, claiming the throne.
"The term pre-Conquest castles refers to the castles built in Norman style in England before the 1066 Norman conquest of England. There are only four such castles known, all of them constructed in the 11th century and now ruined.
"Castles in England built before 1066"
The following 4 pages are in this category, out of 4 total. This list may not reflect recent changes: Wikipedia
Clavering Castle,
Ewyas Harold Castle,
Hereford Castle,
Richard's Castle"
I've heard some American off-roaders talking about fording rivers in their 4x4s, so it is a term used there. There are 1490 rivers in the UK with a total length (including tributaries) of 124,000 miles.
Plus another 4,700 miles of navigable canals!
The word "ford" for a shallow river crossing also exists in other Germanic languages. For instance, in German it is spelled "Furt", hence the name of the city of Frankfurt in central Germany means "ford of the Franks", which was a former shallow river crossing of the river Main (pronounced MINE) there in the historic lands of the Franks. Many towns and later cities developed around these strategic river locations.
I'm firmly of the belief that London's name is of Celtic origin, the latter part,-"don", coming from "dùn", the word for "fort" that still in Irish and Scottish Gaelic, and the "Lon" part from the Celtic word for "pool" that also constituted the origin of the name of Ireland's capital, Dublin. That name, originally "Dubh-linn", came from a black-looking pool in the river meaning "black pool", bedide which was built an Iron Age fort and subsequently a Norman Castle. This view is reinforced by the fact that the Thames has a reach called the "Pool of London", beside which was built a Norman castle called the Tower, propably on top of an earlier fortification.
I have only lived in one city (Leeds) but went to the grammar school in Lancaster (I recall learning the school was founded in 1472, but now its history has been found to go back to between 1235 and 1256). I'm currently in west Cumbria and the nearest city is Carlisle.
There are still some small roads that cross streams without a bridge, and we still call them fords - sometimes they become impassable in floods.
That was a fascinating video. Place names are a lifelong obsession of mine, but I still learnt a lot from that.
As always I enjoy learning and laughing along with you two. Hope you have a nice weekend!
P.S. Did you get a chance to take a look at the video link I sent?
Love and peace from Wolverhampton England
Derby is pronounced Darby simply because that's how 'er' was pronounced before the Great Vowel Shift. Rob's Words has a good video on the GVS. So, words that had become 'fixed' before the GVS - such as most place names - usually kept their old spelling (the pronunciation didn't change). Sometimes the pronunciation did change - in 'merchant' for instance, even though the surname was respelled - Marchant (note the er/ar thing).
It is likely that early map-makers were just as confused (more so?) as we are.
There are still a few -er words that even Americans pronounce -ar - sergeant, for instance.. But note that the surname is Sargent.
Helloooo Natasha & Debbie i fully enjoyed this video very intertsting one at that keep going these are the types of videos i Love Love watching stuff like this keep on going 😃👍❤
Thank you! Will do!
@@TheNatashaDebbieShow i mean every word Love your content don't want you to think i don't when i do plus you both are really funny to watch as in Fun 😂😃😘😁👍
Not seen his channel before but thoroughly enjoyed that. I knew the origins of some of the names including my own city. There are fords allover the place. Drive, walk, ride your horse through! If you're interested in rivers, and underground rives, of which we also have many, so and look up the Megatron in Sheffield. Plenty of explores on here, and it's pretty impressive. There are now proper tours run down there, for the intrepid!
I'm from Bolton in Lancashire. This is from the old English bothl-tun, meaning settlement with a dwelling. Although most locals call it "Bouten" which is Lancashire dialect. We are have the river Croal running through the town, and yes the UK has lots of rivers. My wife is from Cwm Bran in South Wales, this means Valley of the Crows.
5:03 - don't forget, most people couldn't read or write back in the day [as he mentions in passing later], and went by what they HEARD.
I am from Hull and am an amateur history. Recently I have been researching the origins of the city.
The settlement was founded by the monks of the nearby Abbey of Meaux as a port for them to export wool; a small village grew up next to this port called Wyke. Incidentally, there is a college in Hull called Wyke. Edward I used the port of Wyke as the place to bring in and assemble his supplies and troops for his campaigns against the Scots (see Braveheart) and it was this use of the port and his attachment to it that meant he renamed it King's Town. The upon Hull bit was probably just added to distinguish from other Kingstons like the one in London.
The reason it is almost always known as Hull these days seems to come from the Civil War. In the White Harte Inn in the city, a number of noblemen and parliamentarians met and decided to depose the monarch and establish a Republic. You can still go into the room where this happened now, there is quite an atmosphere in there... so the Kingston part of the name was probably dropped at this time to show the city's defiance of the monarch. The first actions of the Civil War took place in the city as well when King Charles I approached the Beverley Gate, the main entrance to the city, because he needed to enter and access his armoury which was in the city. The symbolic beginning of the war, and the city's defiance, could be seen when the gates were slammed in the King's face and he was forced to lay siege to the city now known, albeit unofficially, as just Hull!
I live near Oxford. Recently, various different lofesize ox statues have appeared all over the city. There is one outside the hospital I go to every week.
I'm excited for this, as I've watched the original video. :)
Love the etymology of place names. I happen to live in Surrey, the neighbouring county South West of Greater London. The name Surrey is derived from Sūþrīge (or Suthrige), meaning "southern region" (while Bede refers to it as Sudergeona) and this may originate in its status as the southern portion of the Middle Saxon territory.
There's probably about 1500 rivers in the UK but most are tiny compared to Continental USA and would probably be considered Creeks over there. Why so many? GB is an island with a long mountain ranges running up its spine, bulging up in the West and dominating the North and West - it also rains a lot. That rainwater has to go somewhere and gravity tells it to head for the sea. Hills often have accompanying valleys which make convenient ducts for gravity-crazed water - hence fifteen hundred rivers.
If you like rivers and etymology, Country Life has a great article on their website called "From the Box to the Yox - how did our rivers get their names?"
Great ladies, As always!!!
You Two are quite the blast. Personality pays. but I really like your sympatico. Yours truly, Portland, Oregon.
Haha if you want to learn more about Truro you should watch the comedian Jetho, he was my favourite.
Little or not so Little now😊 Jimmy Osmand second home is Preston and he knows the area really well.
Please , please, please look into Chester it has loads of Roman ruins, roming all about. Even some shops have roman ruins in shops and all over the place. It has a complete Roman walls they are 2 miles round, they are definitely worth the walk.
In the shopping area they are a second leave covered walk way and they have shops. The Cathedral witch is well worth a long visit, it's one of the few Henry 8th left alone. It has a lovely field at the back, if it's a good day you can eat the sandwiches from M&S.
You would love it, I is easy to get a train, you change trains there. You can travel to Ludlow by train it has a amazing castle in the centre, it is extremely old Ludlow is famous for its castle. St Lawrence's it is the central and well worth a visit/stay. Ludlow is also known for fantastic food, there is a great food hall at the North of the town. You can also visit A stunning small castle there
My favourite view in all of England is from the parking are near the church, it takes your breath away. You can walk around a lot of ruins. It is thought to be the oldest castle in England it was owned by one of only 3 pre- Norman, Norman Castle. Well worth a look around, it has a separate bell tower and is extremely old.
I live near Lancaster a town called Morecambe, i don't know if you know the comedy duo Morecambe and Wise Eric was born here and he changed his name from Bartholemew to Morecambe 😊
Great video loved it
I was born, raised and still live in Nottingham. I've known since the 1960's that the original spelling was Snotingahaem. The Normans came and built a Castle on a sandstone hill to the west of the original settlement (which is roughly where St. Mary's Church is). The place inbetween the Anglo-Saxon settlement and the Norman one is The Old Market Square (still there to this day) which was divided in two to allow for peaceful trading. Near to St Mary's Church is the district of Sneinton (still called that and is pronounced without the I) which harks back to Snot's people. The Normans, who found the Sn combination difficult dropped the S in both cases, Nottingham stuck but Notintone didn't. There is a Square in Sneinton called Notintone Place where the founder of the Salvation Army was born, William Booth.
Before Snot's people arrived, the place was called 'Tig Guocobauc' meaning in the Celtic language (Brythonic) 'Cave Dwellers' and is still refered to as the City of Caves. The Sandstone that underlays Nottingham is easily dug out, and the way that it formed meant it had structural strength, and to this day there are about 800 man made caves in Nottingham.
This was great and excellent brain food today, learning with Natasha and Debbie 😊
The Domesday book, created by the Normans to audit the country they had just taken over, is really useful as it gives placenames as they were 1000 years ago and we can see the evolution. On the subject of the Normans, there may not of have been castles before them, but there were plenty of hill forts, such as Old Sarum.
Let us know what city you're from! We are so much smarter now. 😊
@@debbie8674 I was born in Beverly just outside “ULL” ( that’s Hull but we drop our”h”)
Kingston Upon Hull’s coat of arms has 3 crowns on it as the City has always been loyal to the monarchy (especially during the English Civil War & King Charles 1st)
I live in a village called Lowton. The “ton” appertains to farm, the “Low” does not mean a low point, it conversely means a “mound” or small hill. So therefore Lowton means Farm on the mound.
I'm one of Beorma's people but I was born on the hilly island of Dunholm.
Muddy tidal creek shaped like a liver!!!! 12th century newbie Liverpool! ❤
Lincolnshire!
Lots of flat land for farming or RAF bases.
Home of the Red Arrows, Battle of Britain Memorial Flight and Eurofighter Typhoon QRA.
All our rain has to go somewhere ! ❤
I must add that Kingston-Upon-Hull also housed the Kings Armory at the citadel near the river Hull. Hull at the time had 5 gates to protect the whole city.
20:48 he literally said it there, the name liverpool comes from old english "lifer" meaning muddy and "pol" meaning literally pool or creek lol
Where I live in Essex, the majority of the streets off of one long road are named after UK rivers.
I loved that my home town was number 2 on the list. You can't beat Lincoln Cathedral.
YAAAY !!!!..I`m also from Derby, geologically interesting as the hill at the top of my road is the last `bump' in the `Pennine chain.' also known as Englands `backbone', a visual geological formation down the centre of the country.