It's not a yahoo group, it's a jiscmail group. The rules are at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/policyandsecurity/ .
Keith
________________________________________
From: The English Place-Name List [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Guto Rhys [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 22 January 2019 17:22
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: London/Londinium
Stephen
I’ve tried to help you by providing references and suggestions for crucial reading. But you ignore all this.
This isn’t a website but a Yahoo group for people with a serious interest in the field. We’ve all tried to explain to you why your guess is so wrong. Many of us have spent a lot of time but you refuse to budge on gaining knowledge and stick to your guns.
I stay on this group because the discussions are overwhelmingly informed, thoughtful and insightful.
I think that this is perhaps the time for the admin to explain what the group rules are.
I’d rather not leave the group as I learn much from others. But I can’t get drawn into squabbles with someone who rejects attempts to help and shows disdain for scholarship and refuses to do the necessarily reading.
Guto
Sent from my iPhone
On 22 Jan 2019, at 18:09, Stephen Dougherty <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
Dear Guto,
Your definition of “calm persuasion” is obviously not the same as mine. You seem to have forgotten that I was responding to an insulting diatribe in which you reminisced about your teenage years in order to highlight, once again, my stupendous ignorance. I got the point the first time. Your repetitive insults are absurd and counter-productive because they obscure the useful advice that sometimes accompanies your tirades.
Of course I respect the deep learning involved in this area of study, but not being an expert does not make a person lazy. I cannot possibly attain the knowledge and understanding of someone who has devoted their life to the subject overnight, but I read what I can, when I can because I find it interesting (I read Richard’s ‘Celtic whispers: revisiting the problems of the relation between Brittonic and Old English’ last night, for example). Why you assume I can’t be bothered to read up on the subject is beyond me. I also use language every day, and I do have a little education, even some Latin, so I broadly understand what I read.
I hadn’t realised how seriously academic a website this was until I ventured on it and, of course, standards should remain high, but it would it be a terrible thing not to bark at non-academic newcomers expressing an interest in the subject, even if they do present naive ideas which they then try to defend against experts.
Having said all that, your growling, uncompromising style amuses me up to a point. It reminds me of people I know and like, so I’m not going to get too upset and I have no wish to upset you. Specific criticisms and recommendations are helpful and essential if I am to learn about the subject, but they are more likely to be accepted and appreciated if they are presented without the invective.
I only want to talk about place-names on here and would prefer not to waste any more time responding to insults. I hope we can agree to be civil.
Thank you for the reading list and the numbered list of objections, I’ll get back to you on that, and, of course, thank you for trying to help me out of the cockpit.
I am yours etc
Stephen
On 22 Jan 2019, at 07:38, guto rhys <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
Stephen,
Please spare us such long and entirely off-topic waffles. We really aren’t interested in your teenage years as people here wish to discuss English placenames, on a scholarly basis. You are again missing the point entirely. You know nothing at all about this field and you are lecturing to some of the most knowledgeable and thoughtful scholars in the UK (I’m certainly not referring to myself here). You don’t realise how utterly out of your depth you are. It’s like if you were to tell NASA that you have a breakthrough vision in that rockets should be pointy. We know this already. You need to as well. You need to know something about the relevant languages and acquire the required knowledge base but you stubbornly refuse to try to learn utterly convinced that your wild guess has merit. None of us here see placenames as dull, we are all enthused by the intellectual challenge, the opportunity to learn and the potential to throw light on society and history in evidence-poor periods. The only dull thing is your wild guess. We wish you to realise that.
There is a genuinely vast literature on Geoffrey. Having read a translation of his ‘de gestis’ is not sufficient to make on an expert. How many scholarly books and studies have your read? You need to do this in order to even start to grasp how tricky this work is. Being closer to Romans is the old claim endlessly made by the lunatic fringes of pseudo-history. This is meaningless. We often know more about certain aspects of certain periods because we today have access to more sources in libraries and on-line etc. Geoffrey made most of it up admittedly making use of some known and some lost sources. You need to read a few books on this. Just throwing out the name ‘Lud’ honestly makes the commentator look foolish. You haven’t even bothered to check standard works like Ekwall, or the Oxford/Cambridge books on English Placenames. This is lazy. Either buy them or go to the library. You need to be informed.
I’m sorry but your airplane is shattered and smouldering on the ground in a hundred pieces and you are in the cockpit bruised and covered in ash shouting gleefully that you are soaring in the clouds. It’s only you that doesn’t see this. Everyone else is trying to get you out of the cockpit, put out the remaining flames and help you.
Your wild guess has been shown to be utter nonsense, I’m sorry. Everyone has been approaching you with calm persuasion and reason but you refuse to accept and arrogantly stick to your guns. Here are some of the objections to your uninformed guess. Answer these regarding your impossible ‘shipmen’.
1. Provide some analogies i.e. a similar noun becoming a placename. This alone won’t prove anything.
2. Where is the composition vowel? Can you show examples of a similar loss of composition vowel in other placenames from Celtic Europe?
3. Provide us with examples of both *longa: and *donjo in Celtic toponymy.
4. Explain why *longa: would give ‘Lon-‘. You’ve already run away from this major stumbling block.
5. Why would a form *donjo give ‘-din’? Give us analogies. You are just manipulating the evidence to suit your uninformed guess.
Obviously you need to be able to demonstrate why your guess is preferable to previous hypotheses. As far as I can see you haven’t even bothered to read a single one of them. You need to understand the field. Obstinacy and promotion of ignorance aren’t qualities to be admired. Your guess has not in anyway survived. It’s been demonstrated to be wrong on many accounts and yet you will not accept this. We’re trying to suggest that you go and read a book or two, study the required languages a little and yet you won’t. You do not at all realise how challenging this field is because you refuse even to browse a single page of scholarly discussion. We know that common sense is required, but members here also know that knowledge, learning, humility, selfcriticism are also crucial.
It is you that is filling our inboxes with nonsense, with nothing new or interesting about the possible etymology of London. Please, please do some work before labelling my attempts to help you as ‘nonsense’. Please go and read these before making further guesses. This is just the most basic list. In reality you’ll need to study Latin and early Germanic languages. It is beyond me why you can’t grasp that knowledge is crucial.
BYNON, T. 2016. London's Name. Transactions of the Philological Society, 114.3, 281-97.
COATES, R. 2000. A New Explanation of the Name of London. In: COATES, R., BREEZE, A. & HOROVITZ, D. (eds.) Celtic Voices English Places - Studies on the Celtic Impact on Place-names in England. Stamford: Shaun Tyas.
COATES, R. 2006. Ludgate. Nomina, 29, 129-30.
COATES, R. 1998. A new explanation of the name of London. Transactions of the Philological Society, 96, 203-29.
JACKSON, K. H. 1953. Language and History in Early Britain, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Publications.
RIVET, A. L. F. & SMITH, C. 1979. The Place-Names of Roman Britain, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
On Monday, January 21, 2019, 11:38:22 PM GMT+1, Stephen Dougherty <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
On 14 Jan 2019, at 19:01, guto rhys <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
Apologies for taking so long to get back to you. I counted to ten very slowly.
‘Harsh’ wasn’t the first word that occurred to me, Guto. It is not necessarily foolish not to have grown up speaking Welsh or not to have embarked on an academic career in linguistics, wonderful though both things are. Obviously I regret wasting my teens on parties, football and sparkling conversation with my peers when I might have been browsing a copy of English Place-names or reading Ekwall in the library, but I came from a deprived background. My father didn’t own a copy of ‘English Place Names’ and since Ekwall was never mentioned at the family dinner table nor by anyone I ever met, I had no knowledge of him. This stuff may be dull and self-evident to you but I see it with unalloyed wonder.
I only referred to Lud in passing, and as for name-dropping, I don’t claim to have met him, but I do know the role of Geoffrey of Monmouth in all of this because I read his pro-Norman-Breton-British-Welsh work of anti-English propaganda many years ago. I know what he was playing at, but he did live much closer to the Roman era so it is possible that he had access to more information than we do. Having said that, his theory would not be my first choice.
I have come under very heavy fire, but have not been shot down in flames, as far as I can tell, and I think I would notice. My wild guess, has not yet been shown to be untenable however ill-informed I may be. There is no need to disprove other theories before advancing my own and I’m not trying to get to the moon. I just had this idea about London and I’d like to see how it survives informed attempts to falsify it. A load of ad hominem windbaggery about how little I know, when I know how little I know and when I am trying to learn doesn’t get us anywhere. It certainly isn’t persuasive.
I realise how challenging this field is, but imagination and common sense are also required. A little courtesy wouldn’t go amiss either.
I’m sorry about your inbox, but it’s the way the system works and there’s not much I can do about it. I wasn't particularly happy with your nonsense filling up mine either, but there we are.
Now where were we?
All the best
Stephen
Stephen
I don’t think you need to know a little more, but a vast amount more. As far as I can see you have never read any books about place-names, the relevant historical context, researched and learnt the languages involved or even bothered to acquire any of the necessary linguistic knowledge. I’m afraid that this can only be termed foolish.
I’m confident that most of the members of this group are well aware of the points you drone on about. They are the sort of things that place-name enthusiasts understood in their teens when they were browsing their father’s copy of English Place-names or reading Ekwall in the library. It’s basic stuff. You don’t need to lecture people about dull stuff they knew decades ago.
The fact that you name-drop ‘Lud’ doesn’t impress. If you’d bothered to look at any articles or books you’d know about the role of Geoffrey of Monmouth in all this. Instead of inventing and guessing why don’t you take the time to read then you wouldn’t face having everything shot down in flames. Just get the Oxford or Cambridge dictionary of English place-names.
Nobody is challenging new theories. That is your misinterpretation. It’s your wild guesses that are being shown to be ill-informed and untenable. Everyone here encourages new theories but not embarrassingly wild and ignorant guesses. You need to show what’s wrong with an old theory and that you understand it. At present it seems that you know nothing about these, and have perhaps access to a modern Welsh dictionary and no knowledge about how that language works or how Celtic worked, two thousand years ago.
If you don’t have the inclination or the knowhow then why bother making a fool of yourself? Seriously. Get the knowledge by reading a few books, study Celtic etc. I’ve already given you a basic reading list. Learn it like everyone else had to do. You don’t need to accept anything but you do need the competence to understand them.
You need theories to be based on the most recent research. This should be obvious. You aren’t going to get to the moon with the technology of 1920 are you? Nobody here wishes to fossilise scholarship. This is yet another of your misconceptions. The members here are all in favour of innovating.
Please don’t bore us with silly misunderstood anecdotes about Newton and Archimedes. They don’t impress. Go and read the books suggested. Then you will realise how challenging this field is. Get the skills and knowledge base, then you’ll be in a position to assess your own thoughts and dismiss those that don’t work. Get ideas, get info.
Given the awfulness of the previous uninformed guesses I really don’t think anyone will want to hear another similar thoughts about Thames. I’m sorry if this sounds harsh but please, I really don’t want my inbox filled with nonsense.
Guto
On Monday, January 14, 2019, 6:49:07 PM GMT+1, Stephen Dougherty <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
Hi Richard
I realise that is your view, but as yet, I don’t agree. Perhaps when I know a little more I will. In the meantime, it seems to me that barring some remarkable new archaeological discovery, we may never know the origins of the name for sure. Given the number of possible meanings, the ultimate unknowability of the original language and the huge number of possible variations in pronunciation, aural perception, spelling, vocabulary and context, it makes sense to keep our options open. A significant number of equally plausible theories might be maintained at the same time and until actually disproven, even unfashionable theories might reasonably be kept on the back-burner. (Is the King Lud theory disproven, for example?)
New theories should be challenged but not forbidden. The more theories there are, the more directions research can go in and the greater the likelihood that new and important information will come to light. There may be good reasons to dismiss some existing theories, but I don’t understand why we should attempt to do the impossible and disprove all existing theories before suggesting a new one. I certainly have neither the inclination nor the knowhow to attempt to disprove your theory.
I also don’t see why we need to have theories founded in current linguistics and philology, although it is important to subject them to rigorous linguistic criticism. Will theories formulated in the 23rd century be based on early 21st century linguistics and philology? The law of gravity should not be dismissed because it was inspired by an apple falling on Newton’s head and it is well known that Eureka moments can happen in the bath.
I welcome objective criticism, it’s why I came here and I will go away and read up on the suggested material. I realise that mine is a simplistic and amateur effort, but it might have something in it and I haven’y yet been persuaded to drop it. I might try to lay off the list for a bit though.
I also have a theory about the Thames, but I’ll save that for another day.
Stephen
> On 14 Jan 2019, at 14:22, Richard Coates <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
>
> Please read carefully! I said if we're going to have a discussion, it needs to be based on why the older theories/solutions could be thought misguided (false, erroneous, insufficient, partial, controversial, mad ....) Being dissatisfied with what's out there is the only excuse for putting another theory into the ring.
>
> And I meant you need to have a theory founded in current linguistics and philology, i.e. knowledge of the way language change works. I have seen more than one item over the years that purports to make a new suggestion about some controversial name but does it at the cost (usually unrecognized and unacknowledged by the author) of ditching accepted historical linguistics and philology.
>
> Richard
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: The English Place-Name List <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> On Behalf Of Stephen Dougherty
> Sent: 14 January 2019 14:00
> To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: [EPNL] London/Londinium
>
> Yes, it was. I’m not sure why you think they are misguided, though.
>
> Why we can’t launch another theory that is there to be tested against existing understanding rather than based on it? I notice that Llong-dun was once suggested as a possible origin, so although mine is a guess, it seems I’m not the first to think lon might be derived from llong.
>
> S
>
>
>
>> On 14 Jan 2019, at 09:05, Richard Coates <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
>>
>> For those who missed the allusion: this seems to be a reference to:
>>
>> Coates, Richard (1998) A new explanation of the name of London. Transactions of the Philological Society 96, 203-229.
>>
>> Coates' opinion has been subject to competition by:
>>
>> Breeze, Andrew (2014) Two ancient names: Britanni and Londinium. EOS. Commentarii Societatis Philologae Polonorum 101/2, 311-323.
>>
>> and
>>
>> Bynon, Thea (2016) London's name. Transactions of the Philological Society 114.3, 281-297.
>>
>> This is an ongoing thread, even though it's a bit long-drawn-out. But if we are going to discuss Londinium, can we start with a discussion of why these three characters, all of whom base themselves firmly in the pre-existing literature, are misguided? It makes sense to do that before we launch a new theory that is not, as Guto has pointed out eloquently, founded on existing understandings of how Celtic, and historical phonology and morphology in general, actually work?
>>
>> Richard
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: The English Place-Name List <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> On Behalf Of Stephen Dougherty
>> Sent: 14 January 2019 03:46
>> To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>> Subject: Re: [EPNL] London/Londinium
>>
>> Yes, I think Richard could expand on that!
>>
>>
>>> On 12 Jan 2019, at 05:13, Anthony Appleyard <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
>>>
>>> If no good origin can be found for "Londinium", could it be a survival from whatever language was spoken in the area before the Celts came?
>>>
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