Tuesday 26 August 2008

Silly places

I was just reading a news article about a laptop that got bought with bank details on it. Yada yada. But the person who found it lived in Shoeburyness and it struck me as a particularly silly name for a town. So I got to thinking of other very silly names and came up with the following:

Ashby-de-la-Zouche
Tring (this is my favourite, I spotted this coming into London on a sleeper train and was tickled pink, saying "trring!!" a lot).
Potters Bar
Chester le Street
Swadlincote
Godmanchester
Leighton Buzzard
Totton and Eling
Much Wenlock
Shoeburyness
Oswaldtwistle
South Cave
Yarm

and that's just England. I'll give you that Lochgilphead, Largs and Aberchirder probably sounds just as daft to a non Scot.

That's not to mention the town names that are totally harmless but that have been rendered funny by comedians. Those that immediately spring to mind are Cheadle, rhyming with Jeremy Beadle in the Shirehorse's parody of "You're Gorgeous" and "Weston. Super. Mayyyyyyy-er" as pronounced by Richie and Eddie in Bottom.

Anything's amusing if you want it to be.

2 comments:

The Clemency File said...

An Uncle and Aunt of mine used to own a shop and post office in Sussex in a little quaint village called Upper Dicker. Lower Dicker is not far away.

There are plenty of rude place names as well as silly. Nob End near Bolton, Pratts Bottom just off the M25 in Kent, Twatt in the Orkney Isles, Crapstone in Devon, Cockermouth in Cumbria and Bell End which is just 5 miles up the road from Lickey End near Bromsgrove.

Anonymous said...

When you drive down the Highway 78 (the Atlanta Highway of B-52's fame) from Atlanta to Athens, GA, you pass through Between, GA, which is, funnily enough, halfway between Atlanta and Athens. We have been known to stop in the Waffle House there late at night.