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Geography Words

AI generated Britain pt 3: Fuckley

Pt 1, Pt 2

Let’s be honest, this is the one everyone’s interested in. Just where is Fuckley? And why is it called Fuckley?

A lea/ley/leigh is a clearing or glade. It’s not uncommon to see it paired with a tree (see Oakley, Ashley, Elmlea) but to my knowedge the Fuck Tree has yet to be discovered.

It could literally be ‘the glade frequented by fucks’ (maybe the people there are just utter, utter shits) or it could be ‘the glade people visit to fuck’, like a medieval forest version of Makeout Point.

For a more plausible option we could place Fuckley in Cornwall, a county already home to Feock, the town named for St Feoca (I’ll be honest. while I know Feock I couldn’t find a whole lot about St Feoca other than the church in Feock is dedicated to him/her and she/he gives her name to the town). This would make Fuckley the Glade of St Feoca.

A quick scan of the list for other filthy names finds us:

Cum on Street: Cum means with (e.g. summa cum laude) on Street is fairly self explanatory. It’s nonsense, but either way I wouldn’t want to go for a walk here.

Titter’s End: Great name. Significantly less rude than the very real Titty Ho from my home town. Titter is likely a person, and Titter’s end would be his or her end of town.

Handick: Dick is either ditch (Old English dic) or beach/bay (see the arguably ruder Brodick up on the Isle of Arran). As for Han(d), this could be from the Old English for dog (see German hund), or could be someone called Hanna. So Hanna’s Bay, or Dog’s Ditch. There’s also the chance that this was once Handwick (a real place) and the w was dropped (it’s often not pronounced, see Stanwick, Warwick), if so then it’s referring to a farmstead rather than a beach/bay/ditch.

Eassfister: Thank gods for the E. I’d hazard this is East something but wouldn’t want to comment on the rest.

Twatford: This one’s pretty solid. Twat crops up more commonly as Thwaite (unless you’re in the Orkneys or Shetlands). A thwaite is another word for a clearing (so Fuckley could actually have been Fucktwat) so this is ‘the clearing by the ford’ or ‘the ford by the clearing’.