RE: [ImmoderateHeroQuest] Re: Hamsters

From: Jane Williams <janewilliams20_at_D9LSI0VqV3UUtJPjKzcb_dc68mu1t_I6i-tEMPn4EbIIA5HvUr7ge_NbbE_ZV>
Date: Thu, 7 Apr 2005 07:53:02 +0100

> >It drives Diane (who grew up
> >in the Thames valley between Reading and Oxford) nuts.
>
> From the Shire of the Berks?

Who are of course pronounced "barks".

(No, I have no idea why).

Looking up history...

http://www.britannia.com/history/berks/berkshist1.html

As a local name, Berkshire first appeared two centuries later, when the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recorded events for the troubled year AD 860:

'In [King Aethelbert's] days came a large [Viking] naval force up into the country and stormed Winchester. But Alderman Osric, with the command of Hampshire and Ealderman Ethelwulf, with the command of Berkshire, fought against the enemy and putting them to flight, made themselves masters of the field of battle.'

And the 1911 Enc. Brit. has it pron. "berkshire". Interesting.

http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/BEC_BER/BERKSHIRE_abbreviated_Berks_pr.htm l