gingerjon

Kirkcudbright even has an old Scottish county so you have the majesty of Kirkcudbrightshire to get through. How do you pronounce Anstruther?

The fact that Duolingo hasn't yet given me the word for "germanbordervillagebrothel" is yet another reason to be annoyed at its lax standards.

Yup. The most recent unpaid bill came to light through litigation that started in 2018. Jack all to do with covid, Elstone or anything other than a desire to just not pay people.

And now, children, settle back and learn about how the Dutch/Belgian border operates in Baarle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baarle I particularly like "Due to legislation, there is an erotic video store in Baarle-Nassau and a fireworks store in Baarle-Hertog which is open the entire year." This place had some interest recently as Belgium and the Netherlands had different Covid restrictions and each bit had to follow the rules of the country their bit was in.

A fun little link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-49813249 With the 'top ten' most mispronounced places in the country: Frome - "Froom" Ballachulish - "Ball - a - hoolish" Godmanchester - 'Godmunchester' (Gumster has also been offered as an alternative, but now little-used, pronunciation) Omagh - "Oh-ma" Woolfardisworthy - "Woolzery" Beaulieu - "Bew-lee" Bicester - "Bister" Ynysybwl - "An-is-abull" Rampisham - "Ran-som" Quernmore - "Kwor-mer"

Brilliant news, congratulations.

Was a running event a few years ago and a couple of blokes were in Idle AC vests. They had to patiently explain to a couple of over-eager southerners that they were not part of some ironic hipster running club but there really is a place called Idle.

The placenames you get used to that you that you then have to remind yourself are funny to everyone else. As I discovered when explaining to some people who had never been to Lancashire that I'd been to a nice pub with my family. Oh, the name of the place? That would be Ramsbottom.

Went to Yell. Even had lunch at the - my memory says Wind Dog Cafe - in Gutcher(?). Didn’t go to Fetlar but did make it to Skaw at the top of Unst.

Thankfully not. We went in early September. Flight to Aberdeen and then the overnight ferry. Mrs Ginger remembers very clearly that it got a bit rough in the crossing and so I found her a nice comfortable seat in the bar so she could settle herself. She doubted the honesty of my intentions when she realised the new table had a prime view of the TV showing that evening's live Super League game. Stayed in Lerwick and Spiggie in Shetland and then to Orkney where we sojourned in Kirkwall, Stromness and Hoy. All good fun.

I'm far too old and boring these days but I am half-interested in making a rail-based detour to Wuppertal in Germany before I cark it.

Following on from how Dublin comes from Dubh Linn (but isn't called Dubh Linn in Irish), here's a whole page explaining that nobody really knows why London is called London. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymology_of_London

But you can still spell it "ghoti".

Explaining what to call the island on which we were standing - "This is the Mainland" - was something which pretty much every Shetlander we met when me and Mrs Ginger went there on Honeymoon seemed to think it was their duty to do. We also went to Papa Stour for a day and met some people who were, a couple of years later, in the news because of an epic falling out amongst that tiny island's tiny population which culminated in buckets of sewage being thrown over people.

Thanks to @The Hallucinating Goose's fury that the answer 'Hull' was allowed to stand without comment in place of Kingston-upon-Hull, I thought we needed a dedicated thread for quirks of placenames, geography and the like. Things like the classics ... how the River Avon really just means "River River" as Avon comes from 'afon', the Welsh for ... river. How Aber- in Welsh place names means 'at the mouth of' but Aberystwyth is not at the mouth of the Ystwyth, it's at the mouth of the Rheidol. Oh, and ... it appears that there isn't actually a country called France. There is "République