#TorpenhowHill is doing the rounds again.
https://syzito.xyz/@selzero/113885308920691957
Sorry, it doesn't mean "hill hill hill hill"; it just didn't etymology like that.
https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4733&context=wordways
- sure, there's a real village
- hill? Not sure. Read on.
- it's either tor+pennau or (tor+penn)+how
- "tor" is most likely from Old Welsh, and is a rock outcrop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_(rock_formation)
- "pen" goes all the way back to Proto-Brythonic *penn, and means "head". Could be through OW too!
- "pennau" is just the Welsh and O.W. pural of "pen": "heads".
- "how" is tricky, but you don't *need* O.N. "haugr" (midden/heap or cairn/sacrificial mound) for it. O.E. "hoh" (heel, or promontory/cliff) works too. It could be the Middle English "howe" and its modern English "how" descendent, which combines both apparently!
- nobody's certain about the place name, and it's pronounced funny by the locals anyway
- some guy just added "hill", and it stuck
More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Torpenhow_Hill
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Deniz Opal (@[email protected])
Attached: 1 image Torpenhow Hill. When the Saxons arrived and asked the Welsh the name of that hill, the Welsh said "pen" which means "hill" in Welsh. So the Saxons used their word for hill, "tor," and called it Torpen (hill hill). Then the Norse arrived and the same process added the their world for hill "Haugr". So now it was Torpen Haugr (Hill Hill Hill). Later, the English called it Torpenhow Hill (Hill Hill Hill Hill)


