silly and off-topic

[Mark A Mandel]

On Thu, 13 Jun 2002, Lynne Murphy wrote:

#There's a village near Gatwick named Pease Pottage, and I can't ride by it
#without thinking "Pease Pottage hot, Pease Pottage cold".  Btw, Bill
#Bryson's _Notes from a Small Island_ has a nice appreciation of weird UK
#placenames.

See also _The Meaning of Liff_ and _The Greater[?] Meaning of Liff_, by
Douglas Adams (yes, of The Hitchhiker's trilogilogilogy) and someone
else. Liff is a UK placename. They provide definitions for these
funny-sounding placenames.

At least one of the books also includes some US placenames. I remember
my reaction to their definition of a Massachusetts one (fairly local to
me): "That's not funny-sounding at all."

All linguistic humor is local?

-- Mark A. Mandel
   Linguist at Large