Welcome all, and cheers for joining so swiftly!
Thought I'd better offer a few words of introduction. I've started this list
because I couldn't find one out there - please tell me if you know of one!
The best forum for academic discussion of English place-names that I've come
across so far has been on ANSAXNET (there are some interesting nuggets to be
found in a browse through the archive - http://www.mun.ca/Ansaxdat/), but
with such a large membership encompassing so many fields of interest it's
fair to say the ANSAX-List isn't the ideal medium for any detailed or
extended onomastic thread. To judge from the SUSSEXPAST list there are
doubtless many local discussions of place-names going on around the country,
often benefitting from precise local knowledge but inevitably suffering from
imprecise concepts of what constitutes a credible place-name. In any case,
no-one's got the time to join a plethora of county-based lists, so here it
is, the infant EPNL, born just when I can't think of a decent query to get a
ball or two rolling. Bedtime anyway...
Night night,
Paul
Dr Paul Cullen
Dept of English Literary & Linguistic Studies
University of Newcastle
Newcastle Upon Tyne
NE1 7RU
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