Talk:River Gwash

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Etymology

Anyone got a decent reference? Gwash does not appear anywhere in Mills' 'Dictionay of British Placenames'. Camden gives it as 'Gwash or Wash' - it is certainly pronounced 'wosh'. 'Casterton - Castley', A Topographical Dictionary of England (1848), pp. 526-531. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=50860&strquery=gwash - The VCH for Casterton gives 'Gwash or Wash'

Is this an example of some sort of consonant shift?--Robert EA Harvey (talk) 13:18, 26 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The Place-Names of Rutland by Barrie Cox (EPNS, 1994) gives the earliest form as "le Whasse" (c1230) and the first use of an initial G- is 1586. He comments "The late form Gwash is a quasi-Welsh spelling. The name appears to be OE (ge)waesc 'a washing, a flood'".

The contemporary pronunciation is 'gwosh'; I have never heard 'wosh'. Nedrutland (talk) 10:35, 3 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]