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aaand that reminds me of "Torpenhow Hill". > When the Saxons arrived and asked the Welsh the name of that hill, the Welsh said “pen” which means "hill" in Wels
by inanutshellus 3y ago
aaand that reminds me of "Torpenhow Hill".
> When the Saxons arrived and asked the Welsh the name of that hill, the Welsh said “pen” which means "hill" in Welsh. So the Saxons used their word for hill, “tor,” and called it Torpen (hill hill).
>
> Then the Norse arrived and the same process added the their world for hill “Haugr”. So now it was Torpen Haugr (Hill Hill Hill).
>
> Later, the English called it Torpenhow Hill (Hill Hill Hill Hill)
Turns out the rise near the village of Torpenhow isn't named Torpenhow Hill, but I digress... Here's a quick YT on it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUyXiiIGDTo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUyXiiIGDTo
- idoubtit 3y agoThis is a fun hoax that was invented 70 years ago, in 1953. It was debunked at least 20 years ago, but it's still more popular than facts. There is a Tarpenhow place in the UK, but it has no hill. So Tarpenhow hill does not exist. No mention of Norse either in the Oxford Concise Dictionary which describes the word as "Torr pen", top of the hill, from the Welsh "pen", and Old English "hoh", ridge.
- markdown 3y agoI really enjoyed that, so will you kindly cease and desist from ruining a wonderful story with facts. How am I supposed to delight my friends by telling the tale of the Hill Hill Hill Hill if people insist on ruining it by correcting me?
- lmm 3y agoI don't see any contradiction between saying something comes from "old english" and saying it comes from norse.
- ochrist 3y agoOld English was mostly Anglo-Saxon. Old Norse was mixed in later, and after the Norman invasion it became Middle English: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_English Also, read this interesting theory: https://partner.sciencenorway.no/forskningno-history-language/english-is-a-scandinavian-language/1379829 https://partner.sciencenorway.no/forskningno-history-languag...
- owl57 3y ago> There is a Tarpenhow place in the UK, but it has no hill > Oxford Concise Dictionary which describes the word as "Torr pen", top of the hill Are you and the dictionary authors, respectively, sure? :)
- 123pie123 3y agothere's a 3x hill name in Pilton, uk/ on the site of Glastonbury festival "You see, in Welsh (Romano-British), PEN means hill. In a slightly different version of Gaelic (more common in Ireland and Scotland), ARD means hill. So, Pennard Hill is "Hill Hill Hill". For generation after generation, newcomers to the region have been referred to "that hill over there" - and completely failed to understand. A few more millennia, and the name may be longer than the hill. " from https://www.strum.co.uk/twilight/pennard.htm https://www.strum.co.uk/twilight/pennard.htm
- chris_j 3y agoMy favourite example of this sort of redundancy is the fact that there are numerous rivers in England called the River Avon. Avon is believed to come from the Proto-Brythonic word "aβon" [0], meaning "river". [0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Brythonic/a%CE%B2on https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Brythoni...