Let us celebrate our wonderful place names

The British Isles are dotted with places seemingly named to amuse or irritate their inhabitants, writes Dick Skellington.

The history of the British Isles is full of places with amusing and sometimes embarrassing names. A place with an unfortunate name, like a person, can change it.  But surely it is preferable to celebrate it, as the population of Dull have done. It is the British way. Last spring Dull decided to twin with the American town of Boring. 

As regular blog readers will know, I have a curiosity about names. So I was particularly amused this autumn to read that worried residents of the Welsh village of Varteg (nothing embarrassing there I hear you say) wanted to change its name to Y Farteg. It seemed that campaigners wanted the new name because there is no 'V' in Welsh.  The campaign caused quite a a stink around Pontypool.

The Irish it seems are not immune. An inhabitant of the village of Muff set up a scuba diving club. Today, according to the club's website, the Muff Diving Club is "one of the oldest and most successful diving clubs on the island of Ireland". Names matter. 

There are people who are totally resistant to the idea of changing a good place name. In Dorset, the residents of Shitterton resisted attempts to switch to Sitterton. Following one too many signpost thefts the village decided to club together and pay to have the village name carved on a theft-proof tonne-and-a-half slab of Purbeck stone. Shitterton sits on the banks of the River Piddle, and the residents probably thought, as they were not going to change the name of the river, why change the name of the village? 

I am totally behind the preservation of our British heritage. I rejoice that Three Cocks in Powys is still called Three Cocks, that Penistone is called Penistone, Scratchy Bottom, Scratchy Bottom, and that Thong, Grope Lane, and Ugley have had the courage of their convictions and have kept their names for posterity.

And lest you think this is just a British and an Irish thing, visit Europe. In France you could delight in a town famous for Armagnac production called Condom. The French for condom is a préservatif or capote anglaise (English bonnet?) – strange since we used to call them 'French letters'. There are plans to open a village shop specialising in 'luxury' condoms and one German entrepreneur wants to market Armagnac-scented condoms. The local newsagent tobacconist says her best selling postcard to English-speaking visitors is one which depicts the church steeple covered in latex.
Dick Skellington 13 December 2013

The views expressed in this post, as in all posts on Society Matters, are the views of the author, not The Open University.

Cartoon by Gary Edwards