"Over to you, Thog..."

Not my kind of joke, to be honest, Hutch. Sigh.

Well THAT's a relief.

Ooo, the new curly-topped icon, I see!

No wonder Hutch leapt on that one! Him and his poultry fetish . . .

It is not a paltry fetish.

Don't try to duck the issue!

Too right -- wotta turkey!

You do get the impression that this has been going on for a very long time. Back in the 13th Century local lads were probably whitewashing over the `ersand' on the Abbey sign.

In Scotland the town currently called Taymouth only got that name in Victorian times, having previously been called Balloch.

And near where I used to live in the English Southwest, the locals were reversing another name-change imposed by the scandalized Victorians, with the River Puddle becoming once more generally known as the River Piddle.

"the town of Horton cum Studley"

I see nothing whatsoever the matter with that name.

The real fun near Oxford (I lived there for a while too) is watching American tourists pronounce the name of the town Towcester.

""Toaster," yes?"

Bingo! I was wondering if you'd pop up with the right answer . . .

There's a small town just north of Sheffield called Penistone, and when I was growing up the story was that when the local boys had had a few too many beers, they'd go down the local railway station and spray-paint out the `tone' bit on all the platform signs so anyone going by on the train would just see this naughty word go past the window, over and over again.

(edited because I did Penistone the disservice of describing it as a `village.')

Edited at 2008-04-09 04:04 pm (UTC)