Quothquon Passed through here with @kilterceilidhmusic the other day in the seasonal sleet, and was baffled and delighted by the pronunciation. The oldest map I can see for the area has it listed as “Quodquan Mill” in 1771. One source claims that the name is Gaelic in origin but much corrupted and means “beautiful hill” - happy to hear other views. Other good names locally? Whispersbutts (wish mine did) Cockleyedge and Scobbetfield. | Alistair Heather

“Kiosk” is an absolute cracker of a word. The more you say it out loud, the better it becomes. It’s of Turkish origin, there’s not many Turkish words in English but the few that are here are crackers: yogurt is one example, and amazingly the word “horde” for large group of people, which is apparently linked to the Turkish word for army. Coffee, too seems to have come from Turkish Kahve. ☕️ So one of the few entirely Turkish terms in English could be “coffee kiosk” 🇹🇷 | Alistair Heather

You’ll have heard folk say that they’re “steaming drunk” or “steamboats” - and the origin of this phrase is great! The Clyde river in Glasgow used to run special booze ferries for working wanting to get battered into the pints on a Sunday. In 1853 the Forbes Mackenzie Act was passed into law, banning pubs from opening on Sundays. Obviously this was an outrage - folk were working long brutal shifts in industrial Glasgow and Sunday was their only chance to blow off steam. Obviously drinking too mu