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I live near a village called “Horsted Keynes” pronounced “Horsted Cains” - thought it was odd but found an old map from 1750ish and that has it written as “Hors
by ed_elliott_asc 4y ago
I live near a village called “Horsted Keynes” pronounced “Horsted Cains” - thought it was odd but found an old map from 1750ish and that has it written as “Horsted Cains” - somewhere along the line the name must have changed but the locals kept calling it by the old name and it has stuck.
Before we moved here my wife phoned up the local pub trying to reserve a table and said “are you in horsted keens “ the lady quickly, and quite sharply, corrected her “it is pronounced cains” - so I can see why it has stayed, the locals can be quite terse about it and generally always correct people.
- gerdesj 4y agoThere's loads of examples like that around the place. The "great vowel shift" is also responsible for many of them. Near here (Yeovil, Somerset) is Leigh - not "Lee" but "Lie". Elsewhere in the UK Leigh will be pronounced "Lay" - I'll put money on it. When I first saw your village name, I instinctively went for "husted kens". We generally shorten syllables and clip consonants, except when we don't! We insist on aspirating "h" (herb vs 'erb) but will turn beauchamp "bow'shamp" into "beeshum".
- smcl 4y agoWikipedia has a little bit of info on the etymology, it's quite interesting! > Guillaume de Cahaignes, a French knight who participated in the Norman conquest of England, and lord of what is now Cahagnes, was given Milton in Buckinghamshire and the Sussex village of Horstede (The Place of Horses in Old English). The latter became Horstede de Cahaignes and in time Horsted Keynes