Today I learnt…

… that the Welsh for “rectangle” is “long square thing” (hirsgwar) and for “oval” it’s “long round thing” (hirgrwn) and it made me very happy.

This is how I shall refer to them in English from now on.

10 Likes

Welsh etymology is fantastic - you can work out so many words from your core vocabulary. Not like English, where you need to know Latin and Greek to have any chance…

4 Likes

You’re right, it’s fascinating.

But it reminds me of that phenomenon where you go abroad to somewhere where you don’t speak the language, and all the place-names and geographic features sound so wonderfully exotic and then you find out that they mean ‘Big Hill’ or ‘Village’…

4 Likes

I wonder how many people in Pennsylvania know Bryn Mawr means Big Hill.

5 Likes

See also Torpenhow - Hill Hill Hill.

(Despite rumours, there is no Torpenhow Hill, though if there were it would be very funny.)

4 Likes

I’ve always been rather fond of llosgfynydd for ‘volcano’ - burning mountain :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

5 Likes

That’s even better than the River River!

Have you ever seen the Tom Scott video about this called ‘Hill Hill Hill Hill debunked debunked’?

1 Like

I have now! Hilarious!

1 Like

Also Bredon Hill (bryn + down + hill) and Pendle Hill.

2 Likes