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Oh, now they’re just trying it on…

Laughing at place names is immigrant’s delight — I did it in Rhode Island, too. Come to think of it, I did it in Tennessee, and the Weasel family were founding members.

But, honestly, Tickle Cock bridge? Yes, it was so named for the obvious reason. It’s a local makeout spot, apparently, though it doesn’t look very romantic to moi. When the council discreetly put up a plaque designating it “Tittle Cott Bridge” a local geriatric support group, Voice for the Elderly, howled and waved their walkers about and threw tapioca until they changed it back again. Really.

Unlike the four families who live on Butt Hole Road, who took up a collection to change the name to Archer Way. They didn’t so much mind continually replacing the sign, it was the snapshot-posers that got to them.

For your enjoyment, the thirty rudest place names in Britain.

I notice they don’t include Pratt’s Bottom. I still want to have tea there some day.

Comments


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: February 18, 2010, 7:52 pm

Today’s post brought to you by Uncle Badger, who sent me the first link this morning. He thought up the graphic, too.

I’m totally out of gas today. I think we’re both a bit cooped up and stir crazy and ready for Winter to be OVER.


Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: February 18, 2010, 8:07 pm

Her Stoatyness also keeps going on about a place we pass on the way back from London. It’s called Badger’s Mount .

There’s not much worse than a sniggering weasel.


Comment from Scubafreak
Time: February 18, 2010, 8:16 pm

Oh Gawd. Tickle Cock Bridge. Thats a hell of a thing to read when you are biting down on some Popeyes fried chicken…… 😉


Comment from Enas Yorl
Time: February 18, 2010, 8:23 pm

…sniggering weasel

I imagine it sounds something like this Uncle Badger.


Comment from steve
Time: February 18, 2010, 8:45 pm

re: #15 – Fanny Ave.

Am I correct in my belief that the word “fanny” has ….err….ummm…. Well, let’s just say “quite the opposite meaning” over there, than it does on this side of the Western Ocean.


Comment from Allen
Time: February 18, 2010, 8:53 pm

My favorite: Lizard Lick NC. East of Raleigh. The story goes that the gummint set up a liquor store at a cross roads to compete against the illegal shiners.

Speaking of which, you didn’t actually think driving fast cars came about because someone thought NASCAR might be big someday did you?

My youth, sniff.


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: February 18, 2010, 8:56 pm

I can’t believe someone actually thought “Tittle Cott” would be an improvement. Any word start with tit is pretty much guaranteed to provoke sniggers in a certain age group. . .not the one with the walkers, though. All the same, replacing ck with tt makes it almost impossible to say. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Oh, yeah–I went to college in Pennsylvania. I never actually visited Blue Balls or Intercourse, but I was assured they were real PA place names. . .’course, I was pretty naive back then.


Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: February 18, 2010, 9:05 pm

Enas Yorl – that’s the one! 🙂


Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: February 18, 2010, 9:05 pm

And, uh, Steve – yes. It does.


Comment from Pavel
Time: February 18, 2010, 10:13 pm

So do they serve spotted dick at Tickle Cock?

Incidentally, that “Voice for the Elderly” outfit is for folks fifty and older.

Elderly? Fifty? Those wacky Brits.


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: February 18, 2010, 10:18 pm

Elderly? Fifty? Those wacky Brits.

Um. I take it you haven’t turned 49 and received your invitation to join the American Association of Retired People yet?


Comment from Pavel
Time: February 18, 2010, 11:37 pm

Card carrying member. Actually, no card. No membership, even. As far as that goes, I’m not even retired. I just have a fraudulent membership number for hotel discount purposes, like any self-respecting American greybeard.

But if it was called Amer. Assoc. of Elderly People, I wouldn’t even fraudulently claim membership. I have my standards.


Comment from Rich Rostrom
Time: February 19, 2010, 12:54 am

Pavel: “I just have a fraudulent membership number for hotel discount purposes…”

You da man!


Comment from gebrauchshund
Time: February 19, 2010, 1:41 am

My favorite placename in the UK was the “Moss of Barmuckity”, somewhere north of Glasgow I think. It always made me think of the infamous “Chicken of Bristol”.


Comment from Hotrodelectric
Time: February 19, 2010, 5:11 am

Pavel: “I just have a fraudulent membership number for hotel discount purposes…”

Oooooo…I’m gonna tell!! Actually, I’ve gotten a few invitations to join the American Association of Old Farts. I was just ignoring them. Then I sent the last invitation back with a few unkind notes. Haven’t gotten another since.

More on topic, the rude places hold their own well against the rude food names. I mean, really, ‘spotted dick’?!? That sounds like something you contract in rural Thailand.


Comment from lizardbrain
Time: February 19, 2010, 10:07 am

Hey, when you’re a teenager and have hormones squirting out of your eyeballs (and other places), that’s pretty romantical. The dim recesses of my memory are throwing up pictures of similar cozy spots that I used to consider suitable for a-courtin’.


Comment from Anonymous
Time: February 19, 2010, 12:45 pm

I know a place in West Virginia called “Gobblers Knob”.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: February 19, 2010, 1:39 pm

Hey, brain — long time no see. Thing is, another article said it was the main footpath into town and saw traffic of 10,000 persons a day. So I have to think these here tickles were brief and furtive.


Comment from jwpaine
Time: February 19, 2010, 3:14 pm

Don’t forget Toad Suck, Arkansas!


Comment from David Gillies
Time: February 19, 2010, 3:47 pm

You think that’s bad, check out what Magpie Lane in Oxford used to be called in the Middle Ages.


Comment from Pavel
Time: February 19, 2010, 4:36 pm

hotrod said:

>More on topic, the rude places hold their own well against the rude food names. I mean, really, ’spotted dick’?!? That sounds like something you contract in rural Thailand.

Totally. I’d even guess there are some penicillin-resistant strains of spotted dick.

But the way English shucks and jives, I bet you a few years hence a word like cheeseburger will have some kind of scatological connotation, and the great-great-grandkids will be looking at our old McDonalds ads and snickering.


Comment from lizardbrain
Time: February 20, 2010, 8:48 am

Sorry, Stoaty; I went away for awhile yesterday morning and got sidetracked by a Gentoo update gone bad. Didn’t see your reply to me until just now.

I stop by here every morning. I just don’t have much to say. But I always enjoy your posts.

10,000 a day, huh? Well, as I recall, in my younger days I didn’t need much time to get tickled.

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