Talk:Torpenhow Hill
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[edit] Tautology myth
I disagree with the assertion that this means "Hill Hill Hill Hill". It's more to do with the lack of synonyms for kinds of hills and rock formations in English. Let's analyse it -
- Tor - tor in Cornwall and Devon refers to a kind of odd rock formation, not to a hill. In Scottish Gaelic, it means a kind of heap, and while it can refer to a hill, doesn't have to.
- Pen - simply means head, rather than hill specifically.
- How - I'm not sure about this element, but it could either be haugr, the Norse for a mound ("Howe" in Lowland Scots), or an old form of the word for hollow. However, haugr could refer to the same formation as Tor, so if so, that's the tautology.
- Hill - boring general purpose English word for a prominence of many different types.
So, my long winded translation would be "the Summit, with the tower/rock formation, with the mound, hill" --MacRusgail 12:16, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
I actually think it would be nice if in a few hundred years, it would be called "Torpenhowhill Mountain" or replace 'mountain' with whatever your imagination can give ya... (89.138.203.102 (talk) 12:48, 7 January 2008 (UTC))
- Tor - From Celtic origin meaning 'conical hill'
- Penn - From Breton/Old English but could be from Anglo-Saxon
- Pen - A fold, again;Breton
- How - I struggled with this myself & pretty sure that it from the same orgin as Pen..
The British Isles have been invaded and ruled by many differant settlers with differant dialects;I do accept that TOR PEN HOW all have differant orgins,altho Scottish Gaelic & Cornish does have some connection with Celts. Letters do get dropped & added to word ie Ton became Town. I'll stick with the Hillhillhill Hill meaning...It's alot safer. J.Britton —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.48.51.223 (talk) 19:19, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Doubt has been cast on this story. See "The debunking of Torpenhow Hill", by Darryl Francis, in Word Ways, Feb. 2003. The beginning of the article, quoted from here:
- In his second book, Beyond Language (1967), Dmitri Borgmann posed a problem and offered a solution that have both gone unremarked until now, over 35 years later. For those who don't have the book, here is part of Problem 35. Etymological Eccentricities:
- Find a word or name that exhibits a pure, quadruple redundancy, consisting of four elements identical in meaning.
- The resolution provided by Borgmann runs as follows:
- In The Story of English, Mario Pei mentions a ridge near Plymouth, England, called TORPENHOW HILL. This name consists of the Saxon TOR, the Celtic PEN, the Scandinavian HAUGR (later transposed into HOW), and the Middle English HILL, all four of them meaning "hill". Hence, the modern name of the ridge is actually "Hillhillhill Hill"!
- The Catalyst
- On a recent holiday in the English county of Cumbria (part of which used to be called Cumberland), I noticed the name Torpenhow on a road sign. As I was 400 miles from Plymouth (which is in the English county of Devon), I wondered if this was another Torpenhow, different from the one mentioned in Dmitri's book. I detoured through the small but unremarkable village of Torpenhow. No sign of any local feature that could conceivably be Torpenhow Hill.
- On returning home, I started to do some checking on the Internet and in my local library. I concluded that there was no such place or geographical feature as Torpenhow Hill, and that this is a fiction that has been repeated and re-repeated many times...
