Neither Adrian Chiles, in his column about placenames (7 October), nor the writers of the follow-up letters (9 October) mentioned Douglas Adams and John Lloyd’s legendary 1983 dictionary of placenames, The Meaning of Liff, still in print.
Not so long ago, finding ourselves in Lincolnshire, we made a detour just to get a selfie with the village sign for Mavis Enderby (“the almost-completely-forgotten girlfriend from your distant past for whom your wife has a completely irrational jealousy and hatred”). The book is full of delightful definitions of placenames like Nempnett Thrubwell (“the feeling experienced when driving off for the first time on a brand new motorbike”) and Mellon Udrigle (“the ghastly sound made by traditional folk-singers”). Hours of endless pleasure.
Ian A Anderson
Cambridge
Friends and I in the Oxfordshire/Buckinghamshire area have long believed that the names of certain local villages could double as those of 1980s West Indies fast bowlers. Step forward the fearsome pace attack of Sutton Courtenay, Stanton Harcourt and Grendon Underwood.
Peter Lewis
Oxford
There also are, or have been, real people whose names should be Dorset villages. Just a few from the world of stage and screen: Franklin Pangborn, Wensley Pithey, Lynton Brent, Weston Blakesley.
John Davies
Wanstead, London
I always think that Wootton Rivers in Wiltshire is a country and western singer.
Penelope Fletcher
Kintbury, Berkshire
Adrian Chiles assumes that Hope Bagot in Shropshire and Preston Bagot in Warwickshire – just across the valley from my home of Claverdon – are related. Indeed they are, as is Morton Bagot, also in Warwickshire. The Bagot family, who as lords of the manor lent their name to all these places, have their ancestral seat at Blithfield Hall in Staffordshire, which is one of the stops of the famous horn gance from the neighbouring village of Abbots Bromley.
Phil Ivens
Claverdon, Warwickshire
Pink Green, Worcestershire: too garish for Adrian Chiles to mention?
Chris Skelcher
Birmingham
