Caroline Taggart

During my trip to London this past summer, I was fascinated by the place names I noticed as I rode the Tube or looked at my map. I come from an area that was settled barely 150 years ago, so most of our names are reused from other places, many of them in the UK: Surrey, Richmond, New Westminster; First Nations names such as Tsawwassen and Matsqui; uninspired physical features, such as Aldergrove; or occasionally after people such as Vancouver and Victoria. It's all fairly straightforward and show more not very interesting.

But London perplexed me. Is Moorgate the place were the Brits fought back invaders from North Africa? (if so, I don't remember learning that bit of history). Is Temple Bar a place where Jewish people went drinking after going to the synagogue? No! and Emphatically No!!! Moorgate simply means that when the gate was built in 1415, there were marshy moors outside of it. And Temple Bar refers to a physical bar that marked the city boundary that was put there by the Knights Templar. Why is there a place called Angel? (it comes from a coaching inn with that name that stood here in the 17th century). How "old" is Old Street? (older than you probably imagine--"street" in English comes from the Latin"strata", so this is an old Roman road, and was called this by the end of the 12th century). What's up with that stop at the end of the Piccadilly line (Cockfosters) that had my 16 year old snickering every time the recorded voice announced it? (Foster is Elizabethan for forester, Cock is the chief man or the leader). Oh, and Cheapside just means "market district" and not "deals" or "shoddy goods." But I guess living near a market was still way too lowbrow for the types of Caroline Bingley in Pride and Prejudice.

I found this at the British Library gift shop, and have been reading it bit by bit ever since. It is well-researched and Taggart is careful to emphasize that often we just don't know, or can't know for sure, so she often gives multiple viewpoints. This book, which is 276 pages with index, is organized by area. In it, she blends toponymy, history, and trivia, which results in one of those books that entertains while it teaches.

One thing I learned that really stood out for me is how street names can change fairly easily, depending on neighbourhood development, politics, and a hundred other factors, but area names don't change, and are very old. All language morphs, and so too with place names, but the basis for the name stays the same. One of the oldest names in Longon is Penge (which I admit I'm unfamiliar with) which is Celtic for "wooded hill." Surprisingly, the pre-Roman roots for London and Thames are not really known (although there are some theories), and while the Romans left behind walls and roads, they didn't leave many names. The strongest influence to London place names is the Saxons, and the -ing in Ealing, Wapping, Paddington, Kensington, Barking, and Tooting all show that these were areas controlled by an Anglo-Saxon chieftain who has otherwise been lost to history.

Fascinating stuff.

Recommended for: history, geography, and trivia buffs, Londonophiles, people who like to learn about words. show less

I've always been fascinated at the way a language evolves within business. I remember one of my managers telling a group of slightly gob-smacked underlings that we were to: "Fish-hook the opportunities over the gunwales into the opportunity-capture-crucible". And I bought this book with the idea that I might get a few laughs from it and maybe be able to use some of the words and phrases in a comic book I produce once a year for former work colleagues. Actually, it's a much more serious work show more than I had anticipated and even treats terms like "proactive" in a serious way...."tending to initiate change rather than reacting to events".
Nevertheless , I've been able to distill some lovely corporate-speak out of the words Caroline features: "So he had to get into bed with HR by proactively buying-into the revolving-door policy. This was really pushing the envelope for a non self-starter, going-forward, and he found he wasn’t in the loop or on-message with his work-life balance."
Not a great book. But mildly useful to me for my purposes. I give it two stars. show less

A lot of this stuff I never knew, and never needed to know. I think it depends a lot on where and when you went to what sort of school. And a lot of the things she asks are not the things you'd necessarily know even in your own areas. Do you know the areas allotted to each of the seven muses? The fine points of terminology in organic chemistry? The point of this seems to be to make you feel stupid without reminding you of useful things that
have slipped your mind.

An easy to read, often humorous run through the classical world. Language, myths, history, literature and philosophy are all covered. Obviously nothing is discussed in depth because it's not that kind of book but I still learned quite a bit from this broad sweep. Type of book to dip into now and again.