Conference thebay::joyoflex

    > Might be able to dig it up if anyone is interested.
    
    I am!  Are there any estate listings for Sussex?
    
    Many thanks.
    
    M.L.G.

    MLNOIS::HARBIG
                  I second the proposal and while we're at it what
                  about some of those wonderful English place names
                  such as Ashby de la Zouch etc.?
    
                                      Max
                  

    
    
    We call our home :
    
    		"The Vermont State Home for the Bewildered"

    With apologies (and thanks) to Tom Lehrer.
    
    jim.
    
    
    
    
    

    My current house is Tumbolia, the place your lap goes when you stand
    up. I need a name for my new one. I'd like to see a list, if someone
    has one.
    
    	Jon

    well.  My grandfather has two houses (summer) in Maine (on the coast),
    and being an old seafaring goat, he named the big one Mainstay (for
    the mainsail of a ship), and the smaller one Jibstay (for the jibsail).
    I believe a "stay" is also used to "hold something fast" on a ship,
    and of course people are "staying" there all the time in the summer.
     Very witty.  My mother is going to inherit a small piece of land
    between the two, on a nice promontory, and plans to get a house
    built there and spend the summers there with my father....what will
    it be called?  - well we thought about mizzenstay (for the mizzenmast),
    but it sounded really twitly.  A center sail is the foresail, so
    she thought of "forestay", and of course since there's four in our
    immediate family (parents and me and my sister), it's also "fourstay".
    
    other places are called "pip's bluff" after a man who lived on the
    lot, tried to drill for a spring, and hit water at 300 feet - of
    course it was salt water....
    
    wit's end is another
    
    the island's methodist church is called "all-saints-by-the-sea"
    
    and since my grandfather's large house was originally built by a
    minister, and was one in a row of seven built by clergymen in this
    area.....it was a wonderful addition to have a man move in by the
    name of Mr. Lord  (seven ministers and  the Lord)...
    
    one I have heard of that I could not use - Passing Wind
    
    
    -Jody
    

    I went to high school with a young man whose father was the only
    gastrointestinologist in town (everybody else was too smart to go
    into something that hard to spell!)
    
    They called their small ranch "Tummy Acres" . . . 
    
    --bonnie

    MLNOIS::HARBIG
                   You can see a fair number of houses in Scotland
                   called "Nia Roo" which stands for "Oor Ain"(Our own)
                   backwards.
                                    Max

    Re: .5
    
    What about Forecastle? People in the know can pronounce it
    FOLK-SL (which was something on a ship - not sure what).
    
    b

    MLNOIS::HARBIG
                  Re .8
                  The fo'c'sle is the forward castle supposed to be
                  derived from the fact that the first sailing ships
                  had what looked like a couple of castles either end.
                  The fo'c'sle was where the scurvy crew slung their
                  hammocks but due to the size presumably not many cats.
                  Since this part of the ship continually ploughed in
                  and out of the water and caulking wasn't all that
                  good it must have been a pretty, cold damp and miserable
                  place, at least, in northern climes.
                  It used to be said in the British Navy of an officer
                  who had come up through the ranks that "he came up
                  through the fo'c'sle."
                                        Max
                  

    mlnois::harbig
                  Re .5
                  >Wit's end is another.
    
                  Wasn't "Wit's end" the named coined by the redoubtable
                  Dorothy Parker for Alexander Woolcott's retreat ?
                  I seem to remember having read this either in Thurber's
                  "Life with Ross" or Brendan McGill's "At the New Yorker"
                  eons ago.
                                             Max

    re .1, .2 (re .0):
    
.0>                                          I used to, and still may,
.0>    have a thin volume of English estate names, and might be able
.0>    to dig it up if anyone is interested.

    I am sorry to report that I do not still have the above book.  My
    wife informs me that it went to the local VA hospital with the
    last cleanup of the library (five years ago?!)
    
    I think I got the book as a subscription bonus for VERBATIM,
    or possibly through MALEDICTA, although I can't really see how
    it fits with the latter.

    My parents built a little vacation cottage on Cape Cod.  They
    chose a name which reflected their own name, but would not be
    especially encouraging to large numbers of guests.
    
    							Ann B.

  There is a demesne just down the road from my place that is called 
  "Back Acres."  Rocky ground...

  JP

    In 1945 my parents bought an ancient wreck of a cape cod farm house
    and 16 acres, bordered by a small rocky brook. Recently demobilized,
    no money and no career, the 2d of six kids born as they moved in,
    they named the place Stoney Broke.
    

    I like the idea of using relatively obscure names from literature
    in incongruous applications, for instance:
    
    Thomas Hardy's "Mistover" was, I think, a smallish place on a hill
    near a green heath, where there was mist in the morning and at night.
    
    So it would be kind of funny to hang that name on a ranch in the
    middle of some flat Arizona desert.  
    
    Or, one could emphasize size incongruity by naming small cottages
    after mythical castles and large places after shacks ("Uncle Tom's
    Cabin" would be funnier than "Breakers")
    
    Mark
    

    William Boyd, of Hopalong Cassidy fame, named his house "Boyd's
    Nest".
    
    A professor of mathematics named his retirement home "Aftermath".

    Re: .2
    
    There is a village in Somerset (England!) called Norton Malreward.
    The story goes that Norton was one of the knights who came across
    with William of Normandy in 1066. After the successful invasion,
    King William rewarded his faithful follower with a small estate in
    the depths of the West Country. Norton (who probably had something
    more along the lines of the whole of Essex in mind) was distinctly
    unimpressed, and the place became known as "Norton's Mal-Reward".
    
    Andy

    Pratts Bottom (Kent)
    Chipping Ongar (Essex)
    Upper Slaughter, Middle Slaughter and Lower Slaughter
    Leighton Buzzard

    Nether Wallop, Upper Wallop, Lower Wallop (Hampshire)
    	(Referred to collectively as "The Wallops")
    Owslebury (Hampshire, pron. "Ozzle-burry")
    Pennycomequick (suburb of Plymouth, Devon)
    Fishponds (outskirts of Bristol)
    
    AND did you know that the name Swindon (prosperous town in North
    Wiltshire) comes from "swine-down", - literally, pig-field. No wonder
    the council tried to change the name to Thamesdown.

And, just up the road from Kirby Muxloe (where my parents live in England) 
is the scenic town of Newton Unthank.

Neraby are the villages of Sheepy Magna and Sheepy Parva; midway between the
two is "Sheepy Post Office"

				Nigel

    Not exactly an estate name, but _The Pure Drop Inn_ was the only licensed
tavern in Marlott; and an unlicensed ale house in the same village was
Rolliver's inn.

    And, for this morning's quiz, where was Marlott?

    OK, OK, this is a fictional place.

    The Vale of Blackmoor, in South Wessex.

    Now, Marlott was the home of the main character in whose novel?

    Thomas Hardy.  And the novel?

    Tess of the d'Urbervilles.

    I think the "Do Drop Inn" was better!
    
    In the Adirondacks there is a motel with half an airplane
    sticking out of the roof!  Good thing these are two different places!
    
    rmm
    

               "the stow away inn"

                                   stow, Ma

    The Snow Bag Hotel

The cottage my family bought in the Berkshires of Massachusetts was named

                            "Dis-il-do"

and the one next door was shared by two families, and was named

                            "Two-in-one"

Dave

    The retired algebra professor named his cottage
    	"After-math"
    

Re .5:

>    and being an old seafaring goat, he named the big one Mainstay (for
>    the mainsail of a ship), and the smaller one Jibstay (for the jibsail).
>    I believe a "stay" is also used to "hold something fast" on a ship,

Unless this is a usage I haven't come across, it is wrong.  A "stay" is part of
the rigging holding up a mast - i.e. a "mainstay" is responsible for holding up
the "mainmast" (and hence the "mainsail").  On a dinghy, the "forestay" is the
bit of string preventing the mast from falling over backwards; the other two
supports (preventing the mast from falling forwards or sideways) are called the
"shrouds".

Re .18 etc.:

When I was very young, the village of Wyre Piddle (near Evesham ... England)
used to provide endless amusement - mind you, I did have a very sheltered
childhood!

Chris.

Stays are those portions od the rigging which support the mast on the fore
and aft axis.  Those running to the sides are shrouds.

-dave