to think and wonder why Cumbria has an exotic Italian-sounding name?

[cowsoy]

Am I the only one that thinks Cumbria doesn't sound like a very English-sounding name for a country? Not many words end in A in the English language. I wonder why this is?

Yan Tan Tethera (1,2,3)

It would be very rare to hear it done these days though.

There are loads of old Lakeland dialect words still widely used in the area though.

Cumbrian place name that fascinates me - Torpenhow. All 3 parts of the name mean ‘hill’.

I also studied place names as part of my degree - absolutely fascinating and one of the few bits of my degree I remember and use!

www.maumburyrings.co.uk

Dorset area.

Funnily enough there is quite a large Italian community in Carlisle

Love a place name!

With the 'ia' endings there's Mercia, East Anglia, Northumbria from the Saxon period.
Also the 'sex' endings, Essex, Wessex, Sussex from East Saxons, West Saxons, South Saxons.

East Anglia (Land of the East Angles) divided into the North Folk and the South Folk (Norfolk and Suffolk).

And Angleland = England. Probably a good thing it didn't get named after the Saxons...

C1rrus this will date me somewhat, but the most exotic thing about Ipswich, when I used to go to stay with gps, was the fresh cream doughnuts from Newsteads bakery, and perhaps a visit to the Cricketers, which was the pub my great uncle and aunt ran.

Mam Tor is definitely shaped like a boob.

Meredint, it's Aspatria btw. A name to conjure with.

BrizzleMint, nope. I'm retired but not from that. Actually I'm kind of unretired now.

Not quite a hill, but the shoulder of Whiteless Pike in Cumbria is called Whiteless Breast.

Along similar lines I believe the highest point in Cornwall is Brown Willy.

I don't get what's interesting about Aspatria? I keep saying it out loud but surely it's just pronounced how it's written? Is it the pat 'payt' bit?

It's in the dialect. As in Aspatria is often said Aspatri, and if course Torpenhow is locally tra-pen-a.

TheCumbrian I'm not far from Aspatria and lots of people round here call it "spat-tree"

The nearby Torpenhow is pronounced "truh-pan-nah" just to confuse things.

I did as well. I thought it some very hot Country in Africa. I couldn't believe it when I foumd out it was I'm England. I also think the same about
Talacre, that sounds like a Spanish city and I remember people raking the piss out of Jade Goody when she thought East Anglia was abroad, but To tell the truth so did I.

Penrith, of course, is in Cumbria but it sounds like it should be in Wales.

What I find strange is how few people know that California is a village just north of Yarmouth