A Wales online article from June last year, implies, but doesn’t actually say, that the name comes from the original wind in the river that it was next to, but the geography has changed and the river straightened etc.
One in Aberdare as well - all of the other wind streets could plausibly be thought of as starting close to a wind/bend of a river, except Swansea, but rivers move over time.
Looking up the possible Welsh words that could describe this gave camas or camais and GPC has a reference to Camasydre in Ystradgynlais, but I can’t see that on the map, only Maes-y-dre, which is, by chance by the bend in the river - is that a corruption of camas?
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Interesting. I know of a couple of twisty river Cams (Cambridgeshire and Gloucestershire) and also the village of Cambois (pronounced “Cam-us”) in Northumberland - possibly Cumbric “Camas” for a bend in a river.
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I often come across strange expressions when surfing the dictionaries, but this one has me completely stumped.
hela diffrwyth i gol: to bring a noble to nine pence.
Ar lafar gynt yng Ngwent, SE
Pop luc with that. I’ll be interested to see what the experts come up with!
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OK, this is what I found, before confusing myself. Perhaps @siaronjames you can help with your professional insight?
So, to me the Welsh (formerly current) looks something like: Unprofitable (or idle) time spent to give a loss.
A Noble was a coin worth 8 Shillings and 8P in old money (I think).
The English phrase seems to be an 18th century balad. “A Merry life and a short, or, The VVay to bring a noble to nine-pence : … tune of The new corant …”
I’m off for a stiff coffee now 
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You overestimate my professional insight John - seems to me you’re doing better than I could 
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Ha ha, Siaron. It must be your influence
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Apparently from what I can gather it’s an expression in English for someone who fritters away their wealth - someone who extravagantly wastes money etc. I’m not entirely sure about that though - which fits with your Welsh translation quite well I think.
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The Cambridge connection is a red herring, I’m afraid – but an interesting one. The river was originally (at least, in Old English) the Granta – hence the Welsh name for the city, Caergrawnt, and the village of Grantchester just outside.
In Old English the name of the city was Grantanbrycg – the -cg on the end is pronounced like the modern English ‘-dg-’ – which ought to get Latinized as **Grantabrigia, but for some reason that I’m not at all clear on the initial Gr- gets changed to a C- to give Cantabrigia. When that Latinized form eventually finds its way back into English, the unstressed -a- in the middle vanishes, leaving an almost unpronounceable -ntbr- mess behind: that gets simplified in just the same way that we usually say ‘hambag’, even though we write ‘handbag’, leaving you with modern ‘Cambridge’. And then, of course, since the city is called Cambridge, it follows that the river Granta must actually now be called the Cam!
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The Wikipedia page for Cambrai in France has a Gallic link to a personal name derived from cambo or curved (scroll down to toponomy) and links that word to several other place names in France.
Also Camulodunom or colchester (where dunom or dunon means Fort, bre also means fort - possibly a linkage with Cambrai?) - supposedly named after the war god Camulos, but what if Camulos, was actually a real person, elevated to a warrior god like status, maybe a person originating from one of these Cam named places?.
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Really interesting thanks. As it happens, these days the Granta does still exist and it runs into the Cam (coming from a different direction), just south of Grantchester. I take your point though, perhaps the Cambridge section of the river used to take on the name of the Granta rather than the Cam.
Who knows. It’s hard enough getting your head around the Fens river and drainage system when you are there, never mind on a map
I lived there for many years and was amazed at those rivers that are above the level of the ground, (which incidentally is many miles inland, and yet below sea level) and the rivers seem to be flowing the wrong way to my mind.
Although probably not if you are Lady Bracknell.
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Kindle reader problem
Edit: I think I’ve sorted it. To do with the zoomed size of font.
A slightly off-topic query
I wonder if anyone has knowledge of this and can advise me. If so, many thanks in advance.
Regarding Windows 10 Kindle Cloud Reader -
I have @garethrking’s Modern Welsh Grammar Kindle version on my Laptop. The bottom (task?) bar is obscuring the bottom line of the document page. I cant seem to hide the bottom bar.
There doesn’t seem to be any way of scrolling up or down, as with this site. The laptop and screen controls only seem to page up/down: Whole page, rather than row by row.
I use the Kindle app on a tablet and occasionally on my computer. Kindle is designed to work like a book, so you get a page and then click (or swipe on a table) to get the next page. So you can’t scroll up and down a page, the pages fill the screen. Is that what’s happening?
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Hi Margaret,
Yes, its as you say, thanks. What was happening was that the page wasn’t actually fitting on the screen, vertically. I realised that this was because I had previously zoomed up the laptop screen on another programme that I was using, to make it easier to read. So I’ve zoomed it back down again now.
The only problem I’m left with now is that whilst messing about with my laptop settings (trying to sort it), I’ve lost the sideways scroll from the bottom of the screen 
Annoying but not the end of the world.
Edited: I just realised - I dont need horizontal scroll bar on this site. Also, for other programmes I found that the “restore down” button sorts it 
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In Windows 10 you can also make the taskbar at the bottom disappear when you aren’t using it. To do that you hover the cursor on the taskbar and right click. That gets a menu that includes “settings.” Click on that and the first option is “lock the taskbar” and is set as “on” by default. If you turn that off and escape from the menu, then click on the taskbar it will go away. When you want it, just hover in the right area and it will reappear until you have done what you need to, then it will disappear again.
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Ah great thanks, Sionned. Thats what I think I clicked on. 
Mentioned at an unofficial planning meeting in work yesterday (Carmarthen) -
The delivery will be at ten thirty yn y bore, ondy fe. 
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Also, strangely Ive never noticed this before on one of the chapels in Skewen:
ADDOLDY. For place of worship.
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In Bridgend, the office I work in is a small timber partitioned home made box. So, it didn’t seem too handy when I was told that four employees of a sister company needed to bunk in with me from now on. That was until they turned up, all talking Welsh and said no probs for us all to talk Welsh when we are in work. Not bad for Bridgend. .
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