Rude Britain
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rude Britain (subtitled 100 Rudest Place Names in Britain) is a 2005 book of humour and toponymy. The book (ISBN 0-7522-2581-2) is written by Rob Bailey and Ed Hurst, and published in the United Kingdom by the Pan Macmillan imprint Boxtree.
Each of the 100 names chosen by the authors are accompanied by a photograph and a placename etymology. The etymologies are often due to the island's history of repeated invasion, occupation, and assimilation, combined with a human predilection for double entendres.
[edit] Top 20
The following is the list of the top twenty names from the book, many of which are street names and most of which incorporate body part or sexual slang:
- Cocks, Cornwall
- Minge Lane, Worcestershire, England
- Bell End, Birmingham, England
- Twatt, Shetland (note, there is another Twatt in Orkney)
- Sandy Balls, a long-established holiday centre in New Forest, Hampshire, England with a name dating back to Henry VIII
- Muff (now Eglinton), County Londonderry, Northern Ireland
- Fingringhoe, Essex, England
- Back Passage, City of London, an alleyway in the EC1 postal district
- Shitterton, Dorset, England
- Slag Lane, Merseyside, a residential street in Haydock, England
- Hole of Horcum, North York Moors, England
- Fanny Hands Lane, Lincolnshire, England
- Inchinnan Drive, Renfrewshire, Scotland
- Cockshoot Close, Oxfordshire, England
- Fanny Avenue, Derbyshire, England
- Beaver Close, Surrey, England
- Dick Court, Lanarkshire, Scotland
- Lickfold, West Sussex, England
- Rimswell, East Riding of Yorkshire, England
- Spanker Lane, Nether Heage, Derbyshire
Other entries include North Piddle (from the Old English word pidele, meaning marsh), Pratt's Bottom, Ugley, and Spital-in-the-Street (a hamlet in Lincolnshire with a name based on the Middle English spitel, meaning hospital). GropeCunt Lane in Oxford has been renamed "Magpie Lane".
