June 2009

Geordie

June 23, 2009

My discovery of the North of England took me to Newcastle this weekend. The people in this part of the North-East are called “Geordies” and I was surprised that no-one around me could tell me why. It turns out that...

Beyond the pale

June 17, 2009

Here, "pale" isn’t the adjective derived from O.Fr. paile, from L. pallidus "pale, pallid", but the noun that comes from L. palus "stake," related to pangere "to fix or fasten". The Phrase Finder explains that Catherine the Great created a...

Margaret Gelling

June 4, 2009

We spent last Saturday walking in Swaledale, in the Yorkshire Dales, starting from Gunnerside. Our walk book pointed out that this name comes from Norse “Gunner’s saetr”, meaning “Gunner’s slope”, which reminded me of the recent death of Margaret Gelling,...