Whoa (wordplay intended), I didn't know that Preakness was a horse, byb--thank you! Was that the Lorillard family of tobacco barons?

Kentucky's big race is of course named after the British one. But we have a dERby, not a dARby. Bill Bryson, in "The Mother Tongue" (thank you-all for cluing me in on this delightful book!), says that the Elizabethans said a lot of er- words as ar-words, and that some still survive today, mostly as proper nouns: Berkeley, Berkshire. It is still heard in only a few common words, notably derby and clerk, though not in jerk, serve, herd, etc. The spelling variations this brings is noticeable in Hartford, Connecticut: it used to be Hertford. I love this guy--here's one reason why: And then of course there's that favorite word of Yosemite Sam's, varmint, which is simply a variant of vermin.