Etymology
The name "Penk" is actually a back-formation from the toponym Penkridge. This was understood to mean "ridge by the Penk"; hence the river was assumed to be the Penk. In reality the settlement name is from Celtic roots: pen crug, signifying the crest of a hill, or a main mound or tumulus. From this was derived the name of a Roman fort in the area, Pennocrucium, from which the present town takes its name. Margaret Gelling has proposed a precise location for the mound, now destroyed by ploughing, that gave both the town and the river the names.
Read more about this topic: River Penk
Famous quotes containing the word etymology:
“Semantically, taste is rich and confusing, its etymology as odd and interesting as that of “style.” But while style—deriving from the stylus or pointed rod which Roman scribes used to make marks on wax tablets—suggests activity, taste is more passive.... Etymologically, the word we use derives from the Old French, meaning touch or feel, a sense that is preserved in the current Italian word for a keyboard, tastiera.”
—Stephen Bayley, British historian, art critic. “Taste: The Story of an Idea,” Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things, Random House (1991)
“The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.”
—Giambattista Vico (1688–1744)