Biography:A Canadian adapting to life in the United Kingdom. I am pursuing a PhD degree full time and maintain a blog part time: http://onlytheuk.blogspot.com
Names
Unlike my husband, I’m not a let’s-stop-and-smell-the-roses-several-times-before-we-get-to-the-final-destination person but rather, a let’s-get-to-the-final-destination-right-now! gal. So it’s perfectly fitting that I play the role of map reader on our weekend road trips in the United Kingdom. That, and I have yet to sit behind a right-hand drive but my feelings on that issue are slowly changing.
It’s good that during my navigational duty I focus on only one or two pages of our gigantic – this is not an exaggeration – map book because I definitely get swept away in the fun of locating new places. Three Legged Cross in the south of the Isle achieves map book cover status but a while ago, I had spotted Barton-in-the-Beans and we giggled all the way down to Bath. More recently, I found a nearly equal competitor with a disbelieving name of Bitchfield, enroute from Skegness. Can you imagine the bumper stickers (or would they be called car boot stickers)? “Born and raised in Bitchfield” and “100% bitch from Bitchfield”. And don’t forget the mouthful, Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwlllantysiliogogogoch, in northern Wales? These 58 letters are actually a village on the Isle of Anglesey. When translated into English, it means “St. Mary’s Church in the hollow of the While Hazel near a rapid whirlpool and the Church of St. Tysilio near the Red Cave”. The absence of spaces in the name was a publicity gimmick to get tourists to visit this sleepy hamlet.
The names of towns are not only the thing that results in endless entertainment but also the names of the roads and public houses. While most places, except perhaps the country’s capital, seem to have a London Road, there are a plethora of unusual names, such as Cuckoo Crescent, which constantly prompts the need to leave a pen and notepad in the car to jot these occurrences down. We also say that if we ever decide to move all our stuff, yet again, one of the front-running criteria will be a place that faces a street with an adorable name, like Stepping Lane, rather than something as common and ancient sounding as our current address – but it is definitely a step-up from the numbered avenue we lived on before.
The names of British pubs are simplistic, on one hand, but can be very repetitive on the other. Seriously, how many pubs named Plough Inn or Barley Mow or The Wagon and Horse are necessary in a country of this size? Definitely at least 3 of each in the East Midlands area.
Most of these public houses have a brightly painted plaque depicting its name. The names usually contain an animal or some (unusual) combination of fauna. Some examples we’ve come across our travels:
The Peacock
The Red Deer
Swan and Salmon
Frog and Parrot
And my favourite, Derby’s newest addition to the family of pubs, the very appetizing sounding, The Slug and the Lettuce.
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