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I suppose that we should add Edinbura (Edinburgh) - not Edinburrow as furriners tend to call it.
Maybe there is a similar rule for boroughs - Scarbura (Scarborough), Middlsbura (Middlesborough).
Here's a discussion from another board:
I think the answer is, at least in New England, that town-name-givers didn’t have a lot of imagination and liked to stick with the tried and true methods of their ancestors in Europe. There are many exceptions in other areas such as those risqué names in Pennsylvania (e.g. Intercourse, Blue Balls, etc., which were not chosen by the conservative German immigrants but by earlier ruffians). Standard European town endings such as ‘borough,’ ‘burgh,’ ‘bury, ‘borough,’ ‘boro’, ‘town,’ etc. evolved from ancient times and some forms were favored by various groups and nationalities and the people who came to the New World in many cases saw no need to break with tradition.
To get a feeling for how these various town suffixes came about we need only consider the evolution of the ending (and word) ‘borough,’(as in Scarborough, Foxborough, Middleborough, Westborough). It started out in Old English as ‘burh’ and ‘burg’ and about the same time in Old High German as ‘burg’ (as in Gettysburg, Salzburg, Vicksburg, Hamburg) meaning ‘a fortress a citadel’ (in modern German ‘Burg’ means castle) and this carried over into Middle English for about 200 years with a huge number spelling variations [e.g. ‘borogh’ from which probably evolved the abbreviated form ‘boro’ (as in Malboro, Brattleboro, Goldsboro, Greensboro)]. The dative case of the Old English ‘burg’ resulted in the ending ‘bury’ (as in Canterbury, Danbury, Salisbury, Banbury). ‘Burgh’ (as in Edinburgh, Plattsburgh, Pittsburgh, Newburgh) is a Scots form with the derivative ‘burgher’ meaning the inhabitant of a borough). ‘Burg’ also appeared in Old Saxon and Dutch with about the same meaning. Later the sense became ‘a fortified town, and eventually just ‘town’ (as in Charlestown, Jamestown, Capetown, Yorktown, Provincetown).
http://www.wordwizard.com/clubhouse/founddiscuss.asp?Num=4571
Entire Thread Subject Posted By Posted Names Bobyoungbalt 09/04/03 02:08 AM Re: Names Jackie 09/04/03 02:16 AM Re: Names Buffalo Shrdlu 09/04/03 09:37 AM Re: Names consuelo 09/04/03 09:55 AM Re: Names Faldage 09/04/03 11:12 AM Re: Names WhitmanO'Neill 09/04/03 11:23 AM Re: Names Bean 09/04/03 02:38 PM Re: Names nancyk 09/04/03 10:50 PM Re: Names Zed 09/04/03 11:03 PM Re: Names Bobyoungbalt 09/05/03 01:09 AM Re: Names dodyskin 09/05/03 07:00 PM Re: Names E.E.S 09/05/03 08:33 PM Re: Names Bingley 09/06/03 08:21 AM Re: Names / name refusals belMarduk 09/07/03 02:31 PM Re: Names / name refusals of troy 09/07/03 06:51 PM Re: Names / name refusals Bingley 09/08/03 01:16 AM Re: Names / name refusals of troy 09/08/03 02:53 AM Re: Names JohnHawaii 09/08/03 03:27 AM Re: Featherstonehaux Faldage 09/08/03 10:27 AM Re: Featherstonehaux JohnHawaii 09/08/03 10:18 PM Re: Featherstonehaux Kupatchka 09/18/03 10:30 PM Re: names dodyskin 09/19/03 07:19 AM Re: names AnnaStrophic 09/19/03 12:42 PM Re: names of troy 09/19/03 01:44 PM Re: names Capfka 09/21/03 06:07 AM Re: boroughs, burgs and burghs jmh 09/21/03 07:30 AM Re: names pronounced strangely jmh 09/21/03 07:43 AM Re: names pronounced strangely of troy 09/21/03 11:12 AM Re: names pronounced strangely JohnHawaii 09/21/03 10:31 PM Re: names pronounced strangely beanie 09/30/03 07:09 PM Natchitoches Jackie 09/19/03 11:42 AM Re: Names of troy 09/05/03 10:55 PM Re: Names Zed 09/05/03 11:14 PM
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