Saint Botolph's Town

Mar 23, 2019 15:55


I've been a language nerd all my life. On the first day of an undergraduate Old English (Anglo-Saxon) class, as part of introducing her students to the (to most of them novel) concept of language change, the instructor asked if anyone knew the origin of the name Boston. I tentatively raised my hand, and when called on I said "I think it comes from 'Saint Botolph's Town'." She was thunderstruck. "Where did you learn that? WHERE did you learn that?!" (I'm not sure I remembered then, but it was the name of a fictional town near Boston in a novel I'd read. Partway through the book I remembered that "-ton" in place names is the remnant of "town", so I naturally started wondering about the "Bos-" part.)

I shrugged a little, shyly. Plainly I was her first student ever to know the answer.

She became one of my favorite instructors. Her name was Madeleine Pelner Cosman.

In her later years she evinced and promoted some truly repulsive social and political leanings, but AFAIK there was none of that when I knew her.

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