Apparantly, England has some placenames that can be mistaken for very dirty words indeed. In fact, someone has written a book about 100 of the most misconstrueable placenames in England: http://tinyurl.com/9zm54
According to the article,
It was inspired by a story of a young couple who moved out of their new home on Butt Hole road after taxi-drivers and delivery people refused to visit, believing them to be pranksters.
I don’t know if anyone has tried collecting them, but Ireland is full of blue Gaelic placenames. They differ very much from the English names for the same places. One of my favourites is a place called “Turn Your Arse to the Wind”.
When we were in St. Albans, our group of sixth graders got a tremendous tickle out of a sign that read “humps” (meaning speed bumps). 'Course, it doesn’t take much to get a 12-year-old’s mind thinking of the dirty deed!
If you go to the village of Ludford, just a few miles down the road from me, the locals will try and tell you that Fanny Hands Lane (number 12 on the list) is named after a local teacher but us Ludensians don’t believe 'em.
The Lincolnshire pronunciation of the village called Folkingham raises a few eyebrows as well. If you want to practice yellowbelly talk, it’s Fuk’n’em.
The link goes to the “Scunthorpe Evening Telegraph”.
Is there really a place called Scunthorpe and if so, what kind of person would want to live there???
True Story:
One day many years ago, my father’s friend was delivering a goat, as one does, to an acquaintance in No Place. The friend was a Welshman with a rather strong accent.
That day, with the goat sticking its head out of the rear window bleating for all it was worth. he pulled up to several people and asked, ‘Excuse me. Can you tell me how to get to nowhere?’
There’s Cocking and Dicker, both in Sussex (what is it about Sussex?), and Shitlington in Yorkshire. Not forgetting Crapstone in Devon and Effingham in Surrey.
Steve (who came from very near to Cockey Moor in Lancashire).
