Endings of town names

[hotdogPi]

These mostly exist in Massachusetts (and England), but there are probably over twenty of some of these town names. All of these town names are recognized by spellcheck, so I don't think any of these are unique.

"ham": Stoneham, Pelham, Wenham, Birmingham, Windham

"ford": Chelmsford, Oxford, Westford, Hartford, Medford

"ton": Newton, Charlton, Weston, Wilmington, Littleton, Hampton

"town": Charlestown, Newtown, Georgetown

"bury": Amesbury, Salisbury, Newbury

"boro*": Tyngsboro, Boxboro, Marlboro

"chester": Manchester, Westchester, Dorchester, Winchester, Rochester

"cester**": Worcester, Leicester, Gloucester

"wich": Sandwich, Ipswich, Norwich, Greenwich

"shire": Worcestershire, Hampshire

"mouth": Portsmouth, Dartmouth, Falmouth


* Always has an optional "ugh" at the end.

** Always pronounced strangely.

Other things:

"Ing" in the middle: Burlington, Wilmington, Birmingham

[Alps]

* Marlborough is most definitely -ugh. Foxborough also is, but the stadium is not. Boxborough, I'm pretty sure is -ugh as well. Tyngsboro is truly a -oro.

** "cester" is always pronounced "ster." Take away the last vowel before the "ce" and you'll be close.

[DandyDan]

There's ____ City, like New York City, and -ville, like Louisville, Nashville and Knoxville.

[spooky]

* Marlborough is most definitely -ugh. Foxborough also is, but the stadium is not. Boxborough, I'm pretty sure is -ugh as well. Tyngsboro is truly a -oro.

Attleboro officially dropped its -ugh almost 100 years ago, but North Attleborough still keeps theirs.

[Alps]

There's ____ City, like New York City, and -ville, like Louisville, Nashville and Knoxville.

New York is not New York City. It's just called that to differentiate it from the rest of the state. It is the "City of New York." NJ has a lot more -Citys, like Union and Jersey.

[empirestate]

"ton": Newton, Charlton, Weston, Wilmington, Littleton, Hampton

Ahem...Boston. 

"-ton" here is short for "town", as in "St. Botolph's town".

There's ____ City, like New York City...

Actually, not like in New York City. The third word is just a handy identifier widely used to distinguish the city from the state. (Or county–nah, I said "widely".  ) But the proper name of the city has only the two words "New York"; the "city" is technically an add-on.

There are, of course, many other city names that do properly contain "City" as their ending (and I'm still not sure what the status is in Utah as far as this goes, where the word seems to be appendable to any city's name, officially or not).

EDIT: OK, well you already see about NYC above.  But my question still stands about Utah.

FURTHER EDIT: See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_forms_in_place_names_in_the_United_Kingdom_and_Ireland.

[english si]

"shire": Worcestershire, Hampshire

Not a town suffix, but if there are towns with those names, merely shows the incompetence of the sort of people who named towns in the US - like their inability to spell borough.

You can stack them, and "ing" is an ending (Reading, Kettering, etc). Burlington is "Burl's people's town", Hampton is "enclosure town", etc.

[Scott5114]

"Boro" is not someone accidentally misspelling "borough"; it was an attempt at spelling reform by the US Postal Service, the idea being that the unnecessary letters did nothing but take up space on packages and that removing them would make things clearer and less confusing.

"-burgh" became "-burg" in the same reform. Unfortunately, a few individual towns got in a huff over it and won, so now we're back to it being "mostly -boro and -burg except for Pittsburgh and Alburgh, VT".

[empirestate]

"Boro" is not someone accidentally misspelling "borough"; it was an attempt at spelling reform by the US Postal Service, the idea being that the unnecessary letters did nothing but take up space on packages and that removing them would make things clearer and less confusing.

"-burgh" became "-burg" in the same reform. Unfortunately, a few individual towns got in a huff over it and won, so now we're back to it being "mostly -boro and -burg except for Pittsburgh and Alburgh, VT".

Plattsburgh, NY is another example, as is Middleburgh, NY. I'd actually be surprised if there was an overwhelming majority of cities/towns whose name officially omits the "h". It tended to be the post office name that was officially changed, but individual cities may or may not have followed suit.

And since boro, borough, burg and burgh are all essentially the same word, they should really have insisted on only one choice out of the four, if they were really serious about it.

[english si]

"Boro" is not someone accidentally misspelling "borough"

No, it is someone deliberately misspelling "borough".

Which is infinitely worse than doing it accidentally.

Especially as it isn't phonetic - the two 'o' sounds are different (bura would be a better respelling) - the 'ugh' isn't unnecessary. Ditto the 'u' in colour, honour, etc. At least aluminum is pronounced differently to aluminium (both about as phonetic as English gets) - we kept the 'i' as we say the 'i'.

PS: "burgh" is Scottish, "borough" English. In Scottish (and English), burg and burgh are pronounced differently, the former like Pittsburgh is pronounced (the 'h' there is extraneous), the latter like how Edinburgh is pronounced (more like borough, but not exactly - burra, with a lot of 'r' and not much 'a').

PPS: my original comment re 'boro' wasn't too serious, but thinking about it, it truly was a very incompetent thing to change it in the way they do.

[DandyDan]

There's ____ City, like New York City, and -ville, like Louisville, Nashville and Knoxville.

New York is not New York City. It's just called that to differentiate it from the rest of the state. It is the "City of New York." NJ has a lot more -Citys, like Union and Jersey.

I feel like an idiot on that one.  I knew that, but when you write stuff, you aren't always fact checking.

[CNGL-Leudimin]

You can stack them, and "ing" is an ending (Reading, Kettering, etc). Burlington is "Burl's people's town", Hampton is "enclosure town", etc.

"ing" as ending is somewhat common in Bavaria and Austria, forming a lot of gerunds like Kissing, Petting or Fucking .

[roadman65]

"ton": Newton, Charlton, Weston, Wilmington, Littleton, Hampton

Ahem...Boston. 

"-ton" here is short for "town", as in "St. Botolph's town".

There's ____ City, like New York City...

Actually, not like in New York City. The third word is just a handy identifier widely used to distinguish the city from the state. (Or county–nah, I said "widely".  ) But the proper name of the city has only the two words "New York"; the "city" is technically an add-on.

There are, of course, many other city names that do properly contain "City" as their ending (and I'm still not sure what the status is in Utah as far as this goes, where the word seems to be appendable to any city's name, officially or not).

EDIT: OK, well you already see about NYC above.  But my question still stands about Utah.

FURTHER EDIT: See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_forms_in_place_names_in_the_United_Kingdom_and_Ireland.

In Mexico he same goes for Mexico City.  City is also used to differentiate it from the country as well.  Its technical term is Mexico, DF as just as Washington has the two letters "DC" for District of Columbia for lack of state that city belongs to, so does Mexico's capital as the DF stands for Districto Federal which means Federal District in our own language.

It is interesting to that both States of Washington and New York have to have "state" tacked on to the end of it to distinguish them from the two cities that bear their name as well.

[hotdogPi]

What about "minster": Westminster, Leominster

[empirestate]

It is interesting to that both States of Washington and New York have to have "state" tacked on to the end of it to distinguish them from the two cities that bear their name as well.

No they don't.

[Scott5114]

"Boro" is not someone accidentally misspelling "borough"

No, it is someone deliberately misspelling "borough".

Which is infinitely worse than doing it accidentally.

Especially as it isn't phonetic - the two 'o' sounds are different (bura would be a better respelling) - the 'ugh' isn't unnecessary. Ditto the 'u' in colour, honour, etc. At least aluminum is pronounced differently to aluminium (both about as phonetic as English gets) - we kept the 'i' as we say the 'i'.

PS: "burgh" is Scottish, "borough" English. In Scottish (and English), burg and burgh are pronounced differently, the former like Pittsburgh is pronounced (the 'h' there is extraneous), the latter like how Edinburgh is pronounced (more like borough, but not exactly - burra, with a lot of 'r' and not much 'a').

PPS: my original comment re 'boro' wasn't too serious, but thinking about it, it truly was a very incompetent thing to change it in the way they do.

Dunno how you pronounce it over there, but there's no U in color or honor here in Oklahoma–kuh-ler and on-er. Likewise, I would pronounce -boro (or borough) the same as "burro".

Then again trying to make sense of English spelling is an asinine thing to do.

[vtk]

There's ____ City, like New York City, and -ville, like Louisville, Nashville and Knoxville.

New York is not New York City. It's just called that to differentiate it from the rest of the state. It is the "City of New York." NJ has a lot more -Citys, like Union and Jersey.

I tried to tell someone that on an OSM mailing list.  Citing the city's website, he insisted that the city was officially called either City of New York, or New York City (implicitly not New York, nor City of New York City).  He then concluded any city name of the form City of X is mutually interchangeable with X City.

I know this to be absolutely untrue.  In my experience, nearly every city is called [Y of] X, where X is one or more words, and Y is a title like City, Village, Town, and is often chosen arbitrarily without regard for the city's population or legal standing.  And the square braces mean that part's optional, though quite often the presence of the prefix means we're referring to the governmental entity or its literal boundaries, whereas its absence often means the general place or vicinity.  Taking two suburbs of Columbus as examples, we have Hilliard, which is also the City of Hilliard.  It's never called Hilliard City, though some people might think it is, considering the existence of Hilliard City Schools, which is not technically related to the City of Hilliard.  And then there's Grove City, which is officially (as listed on their website's contact page) City of Grove City.  It's never called City of Grove.

It is interesting to that both States of Washington and New York have to have "state" tacked on to the end of it to distinguish them from the two cities that bear their name as well.

No they don't.

They do when the speaker isn't anywhere near the place being referenced or the other place it might be confused with.

[empirestate]

It is interesting to that both States of Washington and New York have to have "state" tacked on to the end of it to distinguish them from the two cities that bear their name as well.

No they don't.

They do when the speaker isn't anywhere near the place being referenced or the other place it might be confused with.

Unless the speaker is a die-hard Upstater, in which case it's New York City that needs the distinguishing affix, while the state name stands alone.

(I'm joshing a bit, of course, but then again, as an aforesaid Upstater, you'll never fully talk me out of my -ishness.)

[roadman]

* Marlborough is most definitely -ugh. Foxborough also is, but the stadium is not. Boxborough, I'm pretty sure is -ugh as well. Tyngsboro is truly a -oro.

** "cester" is always pronounced "ster." Take away the last vowel before the "ce" and you'll be close.

The only community in Massachusetts that is officially spelled "boro" instead of "borough" is the Town of Attleboro.  However, with some exceptions (mostly on I-90 MassPike), guide signing within Massachusetts always uses the shorter "boro" for brevity - it also enables legends to be properly fit on LGS "paddle" sign panels and reduces the width of BGS panels as well.

[Alps]

* Marlborough is most definitely -ugh. Foxborough also is, but the stadium is not. Boxborough, I'm pretty sure is -ugh as well. Tyngsboro is truly a -oro.

** "cester" is always pronounced "ster." Take away the last vowel before the "ce" and you'll be close.

The only community in Massachusetts that is officially spelled "boro" instead of "borough" is the Town of Attleboro.  However, with some exceptions (mostly on I-90 MassPike), guide signing within Massachusetts always uses the shorter "boro" for brevity - it also enables legends to be properly fit on LGS "paddle" sign panels and reduces the width of BGS panels as well.

I also swear I have seen a NORTH ATTLEBOROUGH paddle sign, but it may have just been a magnet or bumper sticker.

EDIT: I was thinking of "OU" but not as in "OUGH". How's this for a paddle sign (and one of the town endings already mentioned, so on-topic!):

[hotdogPi]

Erroneous Road Signs. That should be US 20.

[Alps]

Erroneous Road Signs. That should be US 20.

And yeah, that's kinda why it's on my website & all

[Brandon]

PS: "burgh" is Scottish, "borough" English. In Scottish (and English), burg and burgh are pronounced differently, the former like Pittsburgh is pronounced (the 'h' there is extraneous), the latter like how Edinburgh is pronounced (more like borough, but not exactly - burra, with a lot of 'r' and not much 'a').

In addition, "burg" is German in origin as "bourg" is French.  These spellings are also very common in the US (and Canada) based on who settled what.

[spooky]

The only community in Massachusetts that is officially spelled "boro" instead of "borough" is the Town City of Attleboro. 

FTFY.

I also swear I have seen a NORTH ATTLEBOROUGH paddle sign, but it may have just been a magnet or bumper sticker.

https://www.google.com/maps?ll=41.96817,-71.28891&spn=0.331846,0.685272&cbp=12,181.81,,1,5.23&layer=c&panoid=cMJHwIMLKztRzSgmluI4sw&cbll=41.99854,-71.330408&dg=opt&t=h&z=11

[Alps]

PS: "burgh" is Scottish, "borough" English. In Scottish (and English), burg and burgh are pronounced differently, the former like Pittsburgh is pronounced (the 'h' there is extraneous), the latter like how Edinburgh is pronounced (more like borough, but not exactly - burra, with a lot of 'r' and not much 'a').

In addition, "burg" is German in origin as "bourg" is French.  These spellings are also very common in the US (and Canada) based on who settled what.

-bury to be added to the list (CT especially)