Braintree (was: George Washeengton's Spich empeedeemint)

[Damien Hall]

There's a town in Suffolk, England, called Braintree.  Is it possible that at
some point someone thought that people saying 'Brantry' /braentri:/ were merely
mispronouncing 'Braintree', and that person hypercorrected the spelling, which
then stuck?  That would presumably be by analogy with so many other English
placenames that reappear multiple times in the different states of New, ahem,
England.

I'd like there to be a satisfying phonological explanation too, but maybe the
idea of a false equivalence with the English name goes part of the way.

And, yes, whenever I see 'Braintree' on either side of the Atlantic, I think of
'brain stem' and the appearance of human brains in general too.

Damien Hall
University of Pennsylvania

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