Talking Butts

A few will be aware I have been known to speak on various subjects over the years. Fundamentally these all revolve around my favourite subject of etymology. Have always enjoyed bringing this fascinating subject to others. It’s not for me to say whether the audiences have, although many have asked me to return.

Thought it might be worthwhile sharing a snippet or two from these etymological presentations, continuing with Talking Butts. An odd title which looks at the many odd ideas, often accepted as a part of history, which have no basis in fact. The title comes from the many minor place names, found most often for fields or narrow lanes, seen as 'The Butts' or similar and commonly thought to show where medieval villagers honed their skills with the long bow. Yet it is easy to see this could never be true as the name nearly always appears several centuries before the law allowing the male villagers to miss church on Sundays in order to practise. Many other 'facts' are given an airing and shown they could never stand up to scrutiny. There is a PowerPoint presentation to accompany this talk if required.

Some years ago I gave a talk in Banbury, Oxfordshire, when someone asked me if I could explain the origin of the place name ‘The Butts’ (as explained above) and then proceeded to argue with me saying he knew shooting took place at this particular spot. I thought he was arguing for the long bow around 700 years ago and I was contradicting in saying it was a physical abutment about twice that length of time ago. It turned out he was arguing he knew because his dad told him – and dad was doing the shooting closer to 70 years ago – the Home Guard were on rifle shooting practice.

Queen Victoria said “we are not amused” – and yet the only written account appears in 1919 (18 years after Queen Victoria died) by former courtier Caroline Holland writing about an equerry’s visit to court and how he tried to impress the queen with a story of scandal and impropriety. Yet it is a matter of historical record that Holland wasn’t even in the country at that time.

Thomas Edison invented the light bulb – nope, several versions had been developed before this, Edison’s design was simply better and lasted longer.

And the Wall Street Crash of 1929 saw brokers leaping to their deaths from skyscrapers in Wall Street. It may have been the Great Depression, but there were only four suicides recorded, just two on Wall Street, and all four shot themselves.

If you think you know someone who would like to hear me speak on this subject, drop me a line.