There are no peaks at all in the Peak District.There are peaks in Wales,the Lake District and Scotland,but none in the Derbyshire/Staffordshire area.There are a few sticky outy bits,but that's it.
The people who live in or near the Peak call it the Peak,NOT the PEAKS.
Southerners,and they are usually the southern softy type,have a tendency to call it the Peaks.Why?
Paul, my memory might be a bit wobbly, but I've got a strong hunch that we've discussed this before somewhere on UKC.
If you come from Newport it's the Peaks Districts isn't it.
Taken together, your profile and this post are somewhat bizarre.
> The people who live in or near the Peak call it the Peak,NOT the PEAKS.
Not true, I've lived in the Peaks for nearly 25 years.
> Paul, my memory might be a bit wobbly, but I've got a strong hunch that we've discussed this before somewhere on UKC.
Indeed, my location in my profile still shows 'The Peaks' from winding up those guys all those years ago.
What is a southern softy type?
In Scotland we don’t have this north/south thing - how quaint
though yer all generally ‘southerners’ to here.
Oh and final point - PEAKS!!!
Yes those soft Southern types who insist it is the peaks because there is a Dark and White Peak. They obviously are from The Londons, West,South,Central,North or East I reckon.
In reply to DerwentDiluted:
As long as they don’t get naked for photos then that’s fine.
> In Scotland we don’t have this north/south thing - how quaint
> though yer all generally ‘southerners’ to here.
> Oh and final point - PEAKS!!!
A bit rich, coming from a scotchman.
The only thick ignorant idiots I’ve encountered who call it The Peaks, are not southern. They are soft in the head though.
> As long as they don’t get naked for photos then that’s fine.
Sorry deleted my post! The thought of Yates & Arran having a love-in long before this was ironed out was a bit too much...
Webbo,that is increasingly true. Not too serious a post,though some on here don't get it,as per.
I still want to know what, after all this time, Paul has against the space bar on his computer!
Please, someone find PM a constructive hobby
> In Scotland we don’t have this north/south thing - how quaint
Quaint??!!!! you sound like one of those posh east coast Edinburgh types.
How do you define peaks? Shutlingsloe, man tor and winhill are all nicely peaky and all are in the Peak.
> Yes those soft Southern types who insist it is the peaks because there is a Dark and White Peak. They obviously are from The Londons, West,South,Central,North or East I reckon.
As someone who originates from there, I'm definitely going to start using "The Londons" from now on, that's excellent.
> In Scotland we don’t have this north/south thing - how quaint
> though yer all generally ‘southerners’ to here.
*peers down from Scandinavia*
"northerners"
> There are no peaks at all in the Peak District.There are peaks in Wales,the Lake District and Scotland,but none in the Derbyshire/Staffordshire area.There are a few sticky outy bits,but that's it.
> The people who live in or near the Peak call it the Peak,NOT the PEAKS.
> Southerners,and they are usually the southern softy type,have a tendency to call it the Peaks.Why?
While we're being picky: those gaps you use to separate words from each other - you need some of those after your commas.
Nay lad, tha's wrong theer. A'hm from way up north so put that in thi pipe n smoke it.
Maybe we need to 'do' the etymology again on UKC. Since I understood the most likely theory for the name is that it came from the tribe who lived in the area and they themselves might have been named after the peaks of the region. With the irony and all the maybes I'd place it alongside split infinitives as things we shouldn't really get very excited about.
"Theories as to the derivation of the Peak name include that it came from the Pecsaetan or peaklanders, an Anglo-Saxon tribe who inhabited the central and northern parts of the area from the 6th century AD when it was part of the Anglian kingdom of Mercia."
Mitch is somewhat bizarre but that's rather a part of his charm.
> In Scotland we don’t have this north/south thing - how quaint
I recently discovered that Scottish people don't know what a Ginnel is. Apparently it's possible to be too Northern.
Must have been a very major survey of the Scots...... worth an ignoble ?
.... or maybe many Scots already use the word for something from a probable similar root http://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/ginnel
..... then we have gennels https://stevewetherill.com/2014/02/23/northern-british-sayings-2-snicketgin...
> In Scotland we don’t have this north/south thing
My mother, from Elgin, talked about going to University "in the south" - Edinburgh!!
> Mitch is somewhat bizarre but that's rather a part of his charm.
Really? Must have missed the charm part.......
> My mother, from Elgin, talked about going to University "in the south" - Edinburgh!!
Well, she would be correct.
Re North and South,my routes at Stoney West, Southerners Can't Climb and next to it,Northerners Can't Climb.True when I did them and true now.As for ''bizarre'' , climbers are all bizarre,as we engage in a potentially suicidal sport,so pot calls kettle.
You are all wrong
It is not “the Peak” or “the Peaks”
it is “the Peak’s”
the same way that if I am going to Paul’s house, I’m going to “the Michell’s“, not “the Mitchell” or “the Mitchells”
Ahh but you're not going to the Peak's house, you're going to the Peak itself which is non-possessive.
However this topic is distracting us from important Peak-based threads such as 'Is the Downfall in' and '3 Pebble Slab re-graded to E-Beardy to better match prospective climbers'
It was vast. The sample size was a full 300% larger than the receiving audience...
8/10 troll material there. minus two points for it already being done before, but your vigour must be admired!
“Ahh but you're not going to the Peak's house, you're going to the Peak itself which is non-possessive. “
I’m going to the land that belonged to the Peaklanders
So you're going to the Peaklanders'
> There are no peaks at all in the Peak District.There are peaks in Wales,the Lake District and Scotland,but none in the Derbyshire/Staffordshire area.There are a few sticky outy bits,but that's it.
> The people who live in or near the Peak call it the Peak,NOT the PEAKS.
> Southerners,and they are usually the southern softy type,have a tendency to call it the Peaks.Why?
We call it the Lake District because it's got lots of lakes.
We call it the Peak District because it's got...no peaks?
Your beef should be with whoever called it that in the first place, not the misled southerners
> The people who live in or near the Peak call it the Peak,NOT the PEAKS.
The Peak District is informally called the "The Peaks" for the same reason that The Lake District is informally called "The Lakes". Basically: most people, most of the time, aren't overly concerned with the tedious necessity to be strictly correct but just want to get on with it. Especially when the meaning of what they're saying is quite clear to any reasonable person.
That's not to say that places down't have one or more formal names (note plural), but it's not necessary to use those formal names to the exclusion of other names.
Anything else that needs clearing-up?
> We call it the Lake District because it's got lots of lakes.
> We call it the Peak District because it's got...no peaks?
> Your beef should be with whoever called it that in the first place, not the misled southerners
Actually the Lake District has only one body of water which is called a lake.
My Dad had a road atlas from the 1970s that I used to flick through when I was a kid (being a map geek and all). There was a summit triangle a few miles South East of Glossop marked '636m The Peak'. Nowhere else have I seen Kinder Scout called 'The Peak', but it's interesting.
Kinder may be bigger, but anyone who's been up there in fog & snow knows that Bleaklow is the bigger bastard
Still marked and named as such in current school atlases.
> The people who live in or near the Peak call it the Peak,NOT the PEAKS.
Julia Bradbury (who went to school in Sheffield) calls it the Peaks regularly on her walking programmes. if it's good enough for her then it ought to be good enough for anyone.
On a (marginally) related note, I have a brochure for a Keswick based cottage rental company and they refer to 'Lake' Windermere many times.
> Southerners,and they are usually the southern softy type,have a tendency to call it the Peaks.Why?
The more interesting question is why does this even matter?
The obvious answer to 'why?' is people from different areas talk differently. Not as much as in the past but there's still big differences. People who have lived in London all there lives sound very different from people in Glasgow. No great mystery.
> The obvious answer to 'why?' is people from different areas talk differently. Not as much as in the past but there's still big differences. People who have lived in London all there lives sound very different from people in Glasgow. No great mystery.
Being incorrect is different to using a different accent or dialect. I assume this Peak thing is similar to how it is Orkney or the Orkney Isles, but only 'the Orkneys' to the ignorant.
> On a (marginally) related note, I have a brochure for a Keswick based cottage rental company and they refer to 'Lake' Windermere many times.
This can be tolerated at times to differentiate between the town of Windermere and the body of water.
" a charming cottage right next to Windermere"
Interesting topic but maybe it has peaked
> This can be tolerated at times to differentiate between the town of Windermere and the body of water.
I'm going to call it "Winderlake" from now on. That should really annoy people
> Being incorrect is different to using a different accent or dialect.
Yes but both The Peak and The Peaks are wrong, or rather abbreviated forms of the proper term which is The Peak District. Informal language and slang tend to grow and evolve far more rapidly than formal language and pretty much anything goes as long as it's understood.
> On a (marginally) related note, I have a brochure for a Keswick based cottage rental company and they refer to 'Lake' Windermere many times.
Is it not?
> Yes but both The Peak and The Peaks are wrong, or rather abbreviated forms of the proper term which is The Peak District.
But it's not the Peak Districts. If abbreviating, why add on the 's'?
Presumably because it's referring to a hilly area (of peaks) rather than a single hilltop.
Where's Al Evans when you need him?
> Southerners,and they are usually the southern softy type,have a tendency to call it the Peaks.Why?
Because it gets 'em piqued.
Innit.
> Yes but both The Peak and The Peaks are wrong, or rather abbreviated forms of the proper term which is The Peak District. Informal language and slang tend to grow and evolve far more rapidly than formal language and pretty much anything goes as long as it's understood.
I've experimented with people by saying 'The Peak...' and 'The Peaks...' and 'The Peak District...', and found that people know what I'm on about most often when I say they third one.
We lived in the Peak District and we referred to it as 'outside'.
They do it to expressly annoy professional curmudgeonly northerners such as yourself.
And rightly so!
"Peaks" grates horribly to me, but trying to stand in the way of language changing is like trying to stop the tide from coming in. (ie: you run the risk of making a bit of a Cnut of yourself)
'm sticking with 'Peak', but I've given up trying to convince people that 'Peaks' is wrong.
I wonder if people got upset when Stanedge became Stanage? (The pole is currently in a state of flux it seems - the edge and the lodge are sticking to the new and old spellings respectively but it's Stanedge Pole on the OS map and Stanage Pole just about everywhere else.)
Lately I've seen several references to "Snakes Pass". Aargh!
Bamford Edge is apparently 1300ft high.
When will all this madness end?!?!
> no. just as it's not lake thirlmere or lake derwentwater
So does 'mere' mean something other than the usual? Obviously 'water' kinda implies a lake.
> So does 'mere' mean something other than the usual? Obviously 'water' kinda implies a lake.
yes. It signifies a body of water as does 'water' and tarn in the lakes. So saying lake windermere is akin to saying lake winderlake which is just mental!
In case no-one has mentioned it, there's only one lake in the lakes - Bassenthwaite Lake . (note it's not lake bassenthwaite).
> In case no-one has mentioned it, there's only one lake in the lakes - Bassenthwaite Lake .
You mean there's only one lake with the word "Lake" in its name. Clearly there are lots of lakes in the Lake District. A mere, for example, is a kind of lake. Derwentw*ter is a lake.
(TBH, I just added that last sentence to see if 'Derwentw*ter' still gets an asterisk on here.)
Edit: No it doesn't. But I kinda miss it, so I've done my own.
> So does 'mere' mean something other than the usual? Obviously 'water' kinda implies a lake.
A 'mere' is a particular variety of lake, one that is relatively broad for its depth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere_(lake)
Thanks.
> So saying lake windermere is akin to saying lake winderlake which is just mental! >
That sort of thing is certainly not unheard of in Scotland, which thankfully only seems to (as far as I know) have one word for loch.
> A mere, for example, is a kind of lake. Derwentw*ter is a lake.
So what is a Tarn? Is it nearly a Lake or merely nearly a Mere? Or is it a Water, and how does some water become a Water, and if a water isn't a lake then what is a lake made from if it isn't water?
> So what is a Tarn?
A kind of lake. Not the same kind of lake as a mere, a different kind of lake.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarn_%28lake%29
I don't think a water is a thing is it? Unless it's something a hipster might order in the kind of dreadful upmarket eatery where things come served on agricultural implements instead of plates.
Obviously some water may or may not come in the form of a lake, which may or may not be a special kind of lake that has a specific name.
If a lake isn't made of water, perhaps through the overproduction of some European vinyard or the miraculous intervention of an over-zealous bobble-hatted rambling Jesus you might end up with a wine lake. If it happens to be half way up a butter mountain, I suppose it might also be a wine tarn.
never agreed with p.m before but its the peak not peaks
on a peak photography group on facebook ran by Michael ryan if you say to someone that its the peak and not the peaks oh the reaction is booom
This is all very interesting and Peaks-centric but the real question you should be asking is if you say 'in' or 'on' Portland.... ?
> A 'mere' is a particular variety of lake, one that is relatively broad for its depth
That's rubbish. It's a particular variety of lake, one that is relatively shallow for its width.
> That's rubbish. It's a particular variety of lake, one that is relatively shallow for its width.
Wouldn't that be a pond?
> Wouldn't that be a pond?
Don't they have to be small to be a pond? Pond definition - "noun. noun: pond; plural noun: ponds 1. a small body of still water formed naturally or by artificial means."
Sorry, I'd have joined this thread earlier but I was out getting the shopping, at Lidls and Tescos.
> Wouldn't that be a pond?
No!
https://www.thewesternstar.com/news/local/bottomless-pond-cabin-owner-frust...
> So saying lake windermere is akin to saying lake winderlake which is just mental!
Wonderful example.
There is a replica railway poster on Bakewell station that is dated 1904 which refers to ‘The Peak’.
> The people who live in or near the Peak call it the Peak,NOT the PEAKS.
Ironically I noticed you call the Himalaya 'the Himalayas' in a post from last month, which is surely similar to calling the Peak 'the Peaks'.
http://m.himalayamasala.com/himalaya-blog/himalaya-or-himalayas
I like to refer to it as "Peaksville Arizona".
As for the etymoloygy, I was given to understand that the habit of calling it "The Peaks" began after this chap visited whilst in training for an attempt on both peaks of Kilimanjaro.
youtube.com/watch?v=46btEgKmCTo&
peak (n.)
"pointed top," 1520s, variant of pike (n.4) "sharp point." Meaning "top of a mountain" first recorded 1630s, though pike was used in this sense c. 1400. Figurative sense is 1784. Meaning "point formed by hair on the forehead" is from 1833. According to OED, The Peak in Derbyshire is older than the word for "mountaintop;" compare Old English Peaclond, for the district, Pecsaetan, for the people who settled there, Peaces ærs for Peak Cavern; sometimes said to be a reference to an elf-denizen Peac "Puck."
..and the same dictionary has 'Scot'
Scot (n.)
Old English Scottas (plural) "inhabitants of Ireland, Irishmen," from Late Latin Scotti (c. 400), of uncertain origin, perhaps from Celtic (but answering to no known tribal name; Irish Scots appears to be a Latin borrowing). The name followed the Irish tribe which invaded Scotland 6c. C.E. after the Romans withdrew from Britain, and after the time of Alfred the Great the Old English word described only the Irish who had settled in the northwest of Britain.
So since you appear to oppose any evolution of language, should we be referring to it as Peaclond?
'Pic' actually goes right back to Celtic times (hundreds of years BC) - and before that, Sanskrit in India. It seems to have meant both a pointed mountain, and much more vaguely, 'mountain' in general. Much as we still use it (e.g 'the Three Peaks' in Yorkshire, which are not very pointed at all). 'Mam' appears to be the female version, used in a similar way (cf Mam Tor and 'mam' meaning vaguely the whole area of the High Peak that could be seen from Manchester ... which is named after it: the fort near the Mam).
There's evolution. And there's ignorance.
and a lot of language evolution stems from ignorance, as something that breaks a rule becomes widely used and then the norm and finally supersedes the old rule.
https://www.orientaloutpost.com/shufa.php?q=evolution
I refer you to some Chinese writing re evolution.
I don't oppose evolution,merely state a preference.