Re: CHAT: Ability of Americans & Europeans to locate each others cities (was Re: The [+foreign] attribute)

> if we're doing big/important, then the uk should have
> had birmingham ( second biggest city )
Reminds me, I like to take English place names, break them
down into elements of meaning, translate into Irish, and
then anglicise. (By anglicise I mean the process by which
"Baile beag" /bAl'@ b'@g/ becomes "Ballybeg").

So,

Birmingham = Birm-ing-ham = home (ham) of the tribe (ing) of Beorm
 = Bailechlannbeoirm
 -> Ballyclanber

Oxford = ford of oxen
 = a'th na bo'
 -> Athnaby

And by a similar system, Dublin, whose name in modern Irish
is completely different ("Baile Atha Cliath", the town of the
hurdle ford) becomes the oddly rural sounding "Ballyackley".


> cardiff/caerdydd ( capital of wales )
Caerdydd, ah. didn't know that.

> edinburgh/dín > éideann ( capital of scotland )
Ah.

> belfast ( dunno the  gaelic,
Beal Feirste /b'El f'E4St@/, the mouth of the Feirste.
A river now confined to a sewer pipe. Similarly, Dublin
takes its name from the "black pool" (dubh linn) on the
river called the Poddle, and both pool and river are
confined to underground pipes now. As the Poddle (visibly)
enters the Liffey it "holds out a tongue of liquid sewage
in fealty" (to the passing viceregent of Ireland), as jim
joyce saith in ulysses.

Never did understand why the adjective and noun are the wrong
way around in "dubh linn" though. My usual explanation to myself
is that the name is in some sort of Old Norse - Irish creole
probably spoken by the inhabitants about 900 ad.

Anybody know if Old Norse has an Adjective-Noun word order.
(I expect it does)


> nor indeed the ulster scots )
Could be wrong, but I can't imagine Belfast has a name in Ulster
Scots, at least not one distinguishable from "Belfast" spoken with
an accent.

> ( capital of
> northern ireland )
>
> then there's coventry ( former capital iirc )
Really? I lived there for a year, but didn't see anything
which suggested former capitality. (Or former anything really,
thanks to the Luftwaffe.) Though it was an important mediaeval
guild town.

> anyway, i'm getting very verbose for someone who
> doesn't know anything about geography . . . and i
> still haven't mentioned manchester, leeds, bradford .
> . ..
Dickens called Leeds "the worst place on earth"...
But I think that's just because he didn't get out much.
Like to the South Pole... Calcutta... MacDonalds...
Coventry... Novaya Zemlya ...

s.