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Tintern 'secret' medieval tunnel system found by accident

bbc.co.uk

81–90 of 113 posts

Re: Tintern 'secret' medieval tunnel system found by accident

#81
post #42

The article doesn't say how they know it's medieval.

I looks more recent. Especially the long beams on the roof. Like a sewer. I guess an aqueduct makes the most sense.

There's a site of ancient iron works up the valley. It may be related to that, taking excess water away or something.

Re: Tintern 'secret' medieval tunnel system found by accident

#82
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In England years ago we would visit Weston-under-Lizard (the town of Weston in the shadow of the hill Lizard — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weston-under-Lizard ). That’s my favorite name of this type.

Never thought I’d see my part of the world on here; used to drive through Weston under Lizard every day. Some good place names in Shropshire, too, but Durham has my favourite with No Place and Pity Me.

I've always considered Nempnett Thrubwell to be setting a pretty high standard on the bizarre English place names index.

The Wallops (Nether Wallop, Middle Wallop, and Over Wallop) are good too

Re: Tintern 'secret' medieval tunnel system found by accident

#83
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's universal Shanghai translates to "upon the sea"

> Shanghai translates to "upon the sea" Does it? "Upon the sea" would be 海上, not 上海. 上海 would have 上 as a verb, something more like "get onto the sea". 上 preceding the name might also be interpreted as "upper", as in 上卷 "Volume 1 (of 2)" / 下卷 "Volume 2 (of 2)". Is there a paired 下海 attested somewhere? (Chinese place names involving some kind of spatial relationship are extremely common. But note that they all use nor…

The reverse ordering [modifier noun] is common in Classical and Middle Chinese.

Just like [noun modifier] is no longer standard English, but we do keep phrases with that ordering from Middle English (e.g. Surgeon General)

Re: Tintern 'secret' medieval tunnel system found by accident

#84
post #12

You have to love the s/weird/unusual [1] names of places in the UK (and it looks like a beautiful area from the small picture): > Tintern, in the Wye Valley, Monmouthshire There's also plenty of "upon the"s and "x-in-y" (ie: Henly-in-Arden). Not just the England but seems just as common in Scotland, or even more common. I can imagine the early computer systems of the postal organization having to deal with these quir…

On a similar note there's also the wonderfully named Westward Ho! [1], exclamation mark included.

On looking up the link for the above I learned it also shares an exclamation mark with the incredible Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha! [2] in Quebec.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westward_Ho! [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Louis-du-Ha!_Ha!

Re: Tintern 'secret' medieval tunnel system found by accident

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Shanghai translates to "upon the sea" Does it? "Upon the sea" would be 海上, not 上海. 上海 would have 上 as a verb, something more like "get onto the sea". 上 preceding the name might also be interpreted as "upper", as in 上卷 "Volume 1 (of 2)" / 下卷 "Volume 2 (of 2)". Is there a paired 下海 attested somewhere? (Chinese place names involving some kind of spatial relationship are extremely common. But note that they all use nor…

The reverse ordering [modifier noun] is common in Classical and Middle Chinese. Just like [noun modifier] is no longer standard English, but we do keep phrases with that ordering from Middle English (e.g. Surgeon General)

> but we do keep phrases with that ordering from Middle English (e.g. Surgeon General)

That's not from Middle English, it's from French.

Re: Tintern 'secret' medieval tunnel system found by accident

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reverse ordering [modifier noun] is common in Classical and Middle Chinese. Just like [noun modifier] is no longer standard English, but we do keep phrases with that ordering from Middle English (e.g. Surgeon General)

> but we do keep phrases with that ordering from Middle English (e.g. Surgeon General) That's not from Middle English, it's from French.

Which Middle English was heavily influenced by.

Middle English was closer to French than modern English in many ways-English monarchs still spent time in Normandy and claimed the French crown for generations after William the Conqueror.

Re: Tintern 'secret' medieval tunnel system found by accident

#87
post #12

You have to love the s/weird/unusual [1] names of places in the UK (and it looks like a beautiful area from the small picture): > Tintern, in the Wye Valley, Monmouthshire There's also plenty of "upon the"s and "x-in-y" (ie: Henly-in-Arden). Not just the England but seems just as common in Scotland, or even more common. I can imagine the early computer systems of the postal organization having to deal with these quir…

The postal system runs on post codes. It's a 5-8 letter code that usually identifies 1-20 ish addresses. You usually only need a door number and and a postcode to uniquely identify an address. There is free reverse look up as well.

Re: Tintern 'secret' medieval tunnel system found by accident

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but we do keep phrases with that ordering from Middle English (e.g. Surgeon General) That's not from Middle English, it's from French.

Which Middle English was heavily influenced by. Middle English was closer to French than modern English in many ways-English monarchs still spent time in Normandy and claimed the French crown for generations after William the Conqueror.

Can you provide some citations for locative prepositions appearing before their nouns? I am not widely read in classical Chinese, but all the examples I've turned up have used the normal order.

e.g. 孟子 1A/3 河內凶,則移其民於河東,移其粟於河內 (strongly suggesting that the current naming practices were also current 2200 years ago); 庄子 秋水 13 我知之濠上也 (ordinary positioning).

Re: Tintern 'secret' medieval tunnel system found by accident

#89
post #31
post #12

You have to love the s/weird/unusual [1] names of places in the UK (and it looks like a beautiful area from the small picture): > Tintern, in the Wye Valley, Monmouthshire There's also plenty of "upon the"s and "x-in-y" (ie: Henly-in-Arden). Not just the England but seems just as common in Scotland, or even more common. I can imagine the early computer systems of the postal organization having to deal with these quir…

> There's also plenty of "upon the"s and "x-in-y" (ie: Henly-in-Arden). These are common in many languages. Even in England: Weston-super-Mare is just latin for "Weston by (literally "over") the sea". And constructs like "Stratford-upon-Avon" (to disambiguate from other Stratfords) are pretty common in most places; consider " Frankfurt am Main " and " Frankfurt an der Oder " all of which specify that their town is th…

One example in Bernese Oberland I like: There's a ski resort Lenk. People say they live «in the Lenk» or they travel «to the Lenk». In German you have to know that the genus of «Lenk» is femimine and use the dative or the accusative: «in der Lenk» or «zur Lenk».

That's very weird but even to me omitting the article and preposition sounds wrong. By the way «to the» is contracted from the long for «zu der» to «zur».

Compared to «Frankfurt am Main» there's no specification of a river or something else. It's just the location name where the article and preposition is often required.

Re: Tintern 'secret' medieval tunnel system found by accident

#90
post #31
post #12

You have to love the s/weird/unusual [1] names of places in the UK (and it looks like a beautiful area from the small picture): > Tintern, in the Wye Valley, Monmouthshire There's also plenty of "upon the"s and "x-in-y" (ie: Henly-in-Arden). Not just the England but seems just as common in Scotland, or even more common. I can imagine the early computer systems of the postal organization having to deal with these quir…

> There's also plenty of "upon the"s and "x-in-y" (ie: Henly-in-Arden). These are common in many languages. Even in England: Weston-super-Mare is just latin for "Weston by (literally "over") the sea". And constructs like "Stratford-upon-Avon" (to disambiguate from other Stratfords) are pretty common in most places; consider " Frankfurt am Main " and " Frankfurt an der Oder " all of which specify that their town is th…

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