deardron

The new design is fairly ugly and slower than it used to be... probably too much mobile/tablet oriented or I don't know what... please bring back the classic theme!

Anybody still saying Larwick? (Eshaness/Northmavine)

The Eagle song of course: http://www.shetlink.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4490 (scroll a few posts down)

'Vod' is surely an old Old English or Saxon word (a dozen of words in Shetland lexicon are traceable to the old Saxon language). Obviously the same word as English obsolete wood, Sax. wod, ON óðr. The last word is related to 'ød', Sand/Wests 'yd' (to long for, to wish impatiently and anxiously; esp. of cattle), as given by Jakobsen. It a question whether JJ disregarded 'vod' as being Anglo-Saxon or just didn't catch it at all.

... and a lot of fake spam profiles. Why not to use some sort of blacklist to prevent them from registering?

Same problem here, when someone posts a link to a news on that webpage in most cases it's shut down without a sign of life. Today when I was reading the hacker's topic and tried to open the below link it was unavailable. Now it's on, which happens very rarely though, at least to us, overseas readers: http://www.shetnews.co.uk/news/1559-local-lad-charged-with-hacking-.html

This is from an interview with a dietologist I read not so long ago. He argued that a vegetarian had to eat a larger amount of food than a non-vegetarian. I think in general he might be right, especially if we take into account people who are working physically, those living in cold areas, children, teenagers etc. P.S. I've tried vegetarian/non-meat diets in the past myself.

Well, it's not Greenpeace, this is Sea Shepherd, which was created by that guy Watson, a former GP member who thought GP were not aggressive enough. As rightly pointed out above, SS are never seen when it comes to the Spanish bullfighting, killing of kangaroos in Australia etc. Millions of animals get killed by hobbyist hunters annually in the US alone. But SS prefer to attack small island nations who have been dependant on fisheries and marine harvesting during their entire history. Yes, the pilot whale hunting will probably die out sooner or later, the annual catches are decreasing year by year and the Faroese health authority is discouraging people from eating the pilot whale meat because of a high concentration of mercury and other dangerous substances. I don't agree though that this hunt is more barbarian than what's going on in trivial slaughterhouses. In recent decades there were made some legal changes, prohibiting the use of several types of hooks during the hunt, and nowadays the whales are slaughtered by special knives, so they die within a matter of seconds, 1-2 minutes at most. The usual fishing when fish is caught and let be dying in the atmosphere for hours is much more barbarian than this, but nobody cares. Speaking of seals, this is another sad story of how these green extremists are making damage to people's living. The infamous trade ban on seal products, courtesy of Greenpeace, which was originally aimed against the hunting of young seals in Canada, also affected the seal products exports from Greenland, even though Greenlanders do not hunt for young seals and use other methods than Canadians. Greenpeace did recognise their mistake where Greenland was concerned and was going to officially apologise, but then withdrew their apology ("we do no wrong"). The ignorance of these "green" hippies from big cities, who think they are the ones to tell the world what's right and what's wrong, has cost small Greenlandic villages as much as their livelihood. The vegetarianism these guys are suggesting in a direct or indirect way is another example of their arrogance. A vegetarian diet is on average 3 times more expensive than the usual one featuring meat and is not affordable by many. And if all the 5-6 billion humans will give up eating meat and start being vegetarian, I think they will eat up all grass and tree leaves on Earth within a month, what will mean the end of life on our planet. We are predators, we need meat, which means we have to kill animals for it. Even though this looks so sad, this is the natural course of things and the only way to maintain balance in our nature.

Well, OK, speaking of names, there's an obscure old Norse name Dýri (it's still in use in Iceland, although there's only some 4-5 people who have it). There's a fjord in North-West Iceland called Dýrafjörður = Dýri's firth, that's the same name. It's not given though that Dýri could double its -r- developing into Durrie, but phonetically this is still possible. Another hypothesis, in Norn there was a bird name dirridu 'stormy petrel' < dyrriduv < ON doðr(a)-dúfa (where dúfa means 'dove'). ON doðra could have variations dyrri/durri in Norn. So it might be Dýri's Patch or Petrel Patch. Not very convincing, but probably the utmost we can get out of the Old Norse material. If no, I would suggest this is something Celtic (or what else could it be?).

There are 2 islands in Orkney called Ronaldsay (South Ronaldsay and North Ronaldsay, sometimes misspelled as Ronaldshay), but no such island in Shetland as far as I know.

This discussion made me recall a comment from YouTube by a 18-19 yo girl from Shetland: Most of us Shetland people still speak Norwegian words... most of them arent spelt the same, but sound the same & mean the same thing! When People ask me where im from i'll say Shetland & if they ask where its at i say north of Scotland... I would never say im Scottish! not that i have a problem with Scottish people but i just dont feel Scottish. It's up to you to decide how representative her opinion is

Ghostrider, not an easy one. What about pigs? Scots dialects have the following word: DOORIE, n.1 A pig; the smallest pig of a litter. Also as int., a call to a pig. Also durrie (Arg.1 1931), dyorrie, dhuorrie (Uls. 1924 North. Whig (5 Jan.)). Sometimes attrib. [ˈdu:ri, ˈdj(u)ɔrɪ̜] [Gael. durradh, a pig, sow; also used as a call to a pig; durrag, a little pig.] As for -mee (or smee?), Scots online dictionary says nothing. Norn has the word "smi", earlier "smidja" (smithy) "noted down only as a sea-term, used by fishermen for an old, dilapidated smithy in Westing, Unst, which serves (served) as one of the two landmarks by which to find a fishing-ground; occas. as a placename de Smidjas, de Smis - cultivated patches. Hardly was it Pig Smithy though P.S. Can Durrie refer to a personal name?

Ardvasar or Ardbhasar? A couple of years ago there was a play "There's no 'V' in Gaelic": http://www.anlochran.co.uk/component/content/article/36/103-theres-no-v-in-gaelic-

Well, sometimes such people can partly be right, because there might have been an older (pre-Viking in our case) placename that could be re-interpreted by the newcomers with similar sounding words from their own language. However, in this particular case I believe that both phonetics and comparison with the Faroes don't leave us many options. In the general case interpreting place names is a whole science, where different viewpoints compete more than often, but.. it's like everywhere else in our life Yes, it should be someone(s) with the knowledge of Faroese/Norse placenames as well as Scots/Pictish/Gaelic who could do the job. However, I haven't read that book by Stewart, may be he's quite good at it, except some odd etymology. That can be useful to hear the opinion of people like you, who know the places in question visually or know their story and can tell whether there is a fissure in a rock as the etymologist suggests or not! So you can consider yourself as part of the process OK, that's good to know. In fact your explanation has made me start thinking that "broch/burgh" could mean not only some kind of a fortification, but also have a broader meaning, as just an abode or settlement. Because building a tower with turf makes less sense than if it was just a family house made of turf or another non-military kind of a building. Then it would literally mean the same as the Faroese Sumba. Probably you're right, as I said above there can be different versions of origin. It would be good to trace this placename in records, if it appeared before the 16th century then I would suggest it's either Norse or Pictish. The spelling "-toun" doesn't make a big difference (IMHO), because it could refer to ON "tún" (spelled as 'toon'). F.ex., George Low eagerly uses the spelling 'ou' for the sound 'oo' in his recording of the ballad of Hildina. It can refer to ON "dura" (doors', of the doors), which is rather rare in placenames though. The final 'a' and 'i' are often interchangeable in Norn. I don't know whether you still use the word 'durasuk/dorosuk', it means a draught of air between doors or through a narrow passage, its has the same part. There's another word, more obscure, dorifetels/dorrifetels (lazy lounging or huddling up; indisposition and fretfulness), where 'dorri' is believed to be connected to Norw. durra (disorderly pile; entangled mass). Do these words give you any new ideas?

I wouldn't stake on the 'swine/Sven' explanation just for phonetic reasons, making "sunn/sum" out of "sven/svin" doesn't seem to be likely for Shetland (albeit theoretically possible). There's also a close parallel in the Faroes, their southernmost village is called Sumba < ON Sunn(an)bœr 'southern farm/settlement'. Quite logical that Norsemen would have followed a similar naming policy for a place in South Shetland, bearing in mind they weren't too inventive, having left lots of identical place names where ever they lived. I agree that that etymology was dubious. However, what about Hascosay near Yell? This could be interpreted as ON "Há-skás-ey", "island of high turf", Norn sko 'turf (from the greensward)', Papa St. Scousburgh could then be ON "Skásborg" 'turf broch' (?). I still think though that Stuart's etymology is no worse than yours. In the language of Norsemen "Byggtún" could be well pronounced as By[ch]tún. F.ex. that was the way they pronounced the participle "byggt" = built. Moreover, I feel that the placename "Barley Field" sounds a bit better and more natural that "Bight Town", although it can be argued.