‘Find the lady’: The term 'lady' in English and Scottish place-names

Hough, C. (2009) ‘Find the lady’: The term 'lady' in English and Scottish place-names. In: Ahrens, W., Embleton, S. and Lapierre, A. (eds.) Names In Multi-Lingual, Multi-Cultural and Multi-Ethnic Contact Proceedings of the 23rd International Congress of Onomastic Sciences, August 17-22, 2008, York University, Toronto, Canada. York University, pp. 511-518. ISBN 9781550145212

Abstract

The term 'lady' serves as the qualifying element of a number of place-names in the British Isles, and has a range of applications. This paper presents a corpus of such names from north-west England and south-east Scotland, and discusses issues of interpretation. Attention is drawn to recurrent compounds that may be indicative of name types rather than of ad hoc formations, and to comparative evidence that may suggest a religious context for some names previously considered to be secular. Analysis of the corpus as a whole reveals significant differences between toponymic and lexical uses of the term 'lady', highlighting the distinction between onomastic and non-onomastic language.

• Item Type: Book Sections
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Hough, Professor Carole
• Authors: Hough, C.
• College/School: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Critical Studies > English Language and Linguistics
• Publisher: York University
• ISBN: 9781550145212