Good point. The distinction between presumptions and facts. Guilty as well. - Denne meldingen er sjekket for virus av Norton Anti-virus - This message was checked for virus by Norton Anti-virus ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gordon Barlow" <barlow@candw.ky> To: <OLD-ENGLISH-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Saturday, August 14, 2004 1:33 PM Subject: [OEL] settlements' names > With respect to all, I don't think any of us should get too hung up on identifying the exact origins of place-names. We can never know for an indisputable fact that any -ton or -ck or -wick or -ham or -m or -thorpe or -ing etc was named for a particular individual. All we can say is that it is compatible with such naming. "What else could it be?" is not a proper explanation, and it is not logical. The same applies to surnames, of course. We say that the surname Butcher comes from an ancestor who was a butcher, when we really haven't got the slightest evidence beyond the name itself. Many books are written on name-origins, and they sell in the thousands, and many believe them; but serious students of the topic ought never to lose sight of the fact that the authors are making conclusions and deductions on the shakiest of grounds - and on even shakier logic. > > I do not believe Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, but the evidence for the assertions was and is infinitely greater than the evidence for the asserted origins of most names. Two thousand years from now, school textbooks will be identifying Saddam with Sodom. Well, and why not? What else could it have meant? > > The City of Hereford is named for the place where armies forded - according to the assertions of several authors, on the grounds that "here" or similar (I forget) meant "army" back in the Olden Tymes. But it's a guess! My own guess is that the river Wye at that point was called the Arrow, which is an up-stream name for it today. So Hereford was formerly Arrer-ford. That's a guess, too. It will pay us in the long run to be cautious about claiming certainty where none exists by any objective measure. Oxford = Oxes' ford? Oh, please! > > Gordon Barlow > > > ==== OLD-ENGLISH Mailing List ==== > THREADED archives for OLD-ENGLISH: > http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index?list=OLD-ENGLISH > >