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Paul Carbuncle

@paulcarbuncle.bsky.social
114 followers 107 following 174 posts

Folk-punk, onomastics, etymology, historical linguistics, real ale, blackbird song, and fairness. Editor of the EPNS Survey of Kent and co-host of Carrington Triangle Folk Club. Not an adult, according to BlueSky.

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Paul Carbuncle @paulcarbuncle.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
This'll be a treat!
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Paul Carbuncle @paulcarbuncle.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
Hello again Bluesky, it's been a while! Shamelessly returning cos I've got a new album to flog: Reverse Canterbury Pleasure. Download or CD digipak via Bandcamp. Much less blurry than my crap photo suggests! With a nice spine for neat alphabetical storage. paulcarbuncle.bandcamp.com/album/revers...
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Paul Carbuncle @paulcarbuncle.bsky.social · 16/09/2025
High Peak ahoy!
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Paul Carbuncle @paulcarbuncle.bsky.social · 23/08/2025
Let's party like it's 1925.
Poster for The Sherwood Shessions on Sunday 7th September, 5pm, at The Drinkery, 71 Haydn Road, Nottingham, NG5 2LA, hosted by Paul Carbuncle, with Nick Morland, Jeremy Galgut, and Michael Howard. Free admission. The picture is a black and white photo taken in Sweden in 1925, showing a young girl in a spotty frock sitting beside three fluffy owls perched on a length of wood. She may well be about to juggle them.
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Reposted by Paul Carbuncle
Tom Gauld @tomgauld.bsky.social · 27/07/2025
My cartoon for this week’s Books pages in @theguardian.com

Image: A small, pretty English village. A girl with a bag on her shoulder runs towards a van on the other side of the village green. She says to herself "I've got to follow my heart and leave this sleepy village behind. A new life awaits on the open road, touring from town to town in a merry band of brilliant eccentrics!"

Title: “Rebecca runs away to join the travelling library”
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Paul Carbuncle @paulcarbuncle.bsky.social · 18/07/2025
#oedantedatings 3-year antedating of gallow(s)-tree (sense 2) ‘iron support for a pot over a fire’ (in #OED from 1590) Item one gallowtrye one pare of howkes & one landyron – 20d. (1587) Old Place, New Perspectives: a History of the Manor House of Old Sleaford, Lincolnshire (2020), p. 102 [1/2]
Photo of a large old red-brick fireplace containing a gallows-like framework from which to hang a cooking pot. Nothing's cooking at the moment.
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Paul Carbuncle @paulcarbuncle.bsky.social · 08/07/2025
Great North Folk Festival this weekend, 11th–13th July, Botton Village, North York Moors, YO21 2NJ. I’m on at 6.30 and 10.50 on Friday evening (Foyer Folk both times), 2.10pm on Saturday (Joan of Arc Hall), and 3pm on Sunday (Joan of Arc Hall again). Sunshine and real ale forecast.
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Paul Carbuncle @paulcarbuncle.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
#oedantedatings 32-year antedating of burling-iron 'pincers for extracting knots from wool' (in #OED from 1530) all the stuffe that longyth to my shope as wele the Walkers erthe as handylls and burlyngs yrnes (1498) Will of William Halowton, fuller, in Early #Northampton Wills, 214
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Paul Carbuncle @paulcarbuncle.bsky.social · 26/06/2025
I beg your Parbery? substack.com/@paulcarbuncle
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Paul Carbuncle @paulcarbuncle.bsky.social · 24/06/2025
#oedantedatings 63-year antedating of ewe-lease 'pasture for ewes' (in #OED from 1874) Wolverton Ewe-lees (1811) [in Charminster] #EPNS Place-Names of #Dorset 1, p. 342
Photo of about twenty ewes grazing in a large lush green field, with rolling wooded countryside in the distance. There is, of course, one black sheep among the otherwise white flock.
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Paul Carbuncle @paulcarbuncle.bsky.social · 20/06/2025
#oedantedatings 42-year antedating of post-house (sense 1) 'inn or other building where horses are kept for the use of travellers' (in #OED from 1611) le posthowsse ten’ voc’ clavelles (1569) [in Piddlehinton] #EPNS Place-Names of #Dorset 1, p. 314
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Paul Carbuncle @paulcarbuncle.bsky.social · 16/06/2025
Worrow and Macro, together at last. substack.com/@paulcarbuncle
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Paul Carbuncle @paulcarbuncle.bsky.social · 16/06/2025
Critten! substack.com/@paulcarbuncle
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Paul Carbuncle @paulcarbuncle.bsky.social · 15/06/2025
Vodden? substack.com/@paulcarbuncle
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Paul Carbuncle @paulcarbuncle.bsky.social · 12/06/2025
#oedantedatings 129-year antedating of tucking-mill ‘fulling-mill’ (in #OED from 1467–8) la Toukyngmulle (1338) [in Horningsham] #EPNS Place-Names of #Wiltshire, p. 442 curs’ aque apud la Toukyng Mull (1428) [in Turners Puddle] Place-Names of #Dorset 1, p. 297 (1/2)
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Paul Carbuncle @paulcarbuncle.bsky.social · 10/06/2025
#oedantedatings 76-year antedating of culver-house ‘dove-cote’ (in #OED from 1340) le Culverhouse (1264) Colverhouscroft (1270) #EPNS Place-Names of #Wiltshire, pp. 428, 437
Photograph of an intact medieval dovecote sitting amongst the fields and hedges of Sibthorpe in Nottinghamshire. It is a stone-built circular tower, tapering as it rises in two stages, with a conical tiled roof. A doorway is visible at ground level.
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Paul Carbuncle @paulcarbuncle.bsky.social · 07/06/2025
#oedantedatings 145-year antedating of chalk-land (in #OED from 1941) Sainfoin. This is the most valuable of all the grasses cultivated in this county: and is much grown on the chalk-land of the eastern part (1796) John Boys, A General View of the Agriculture of the County of #Kent, p. 96
Black and white photo of the prominent chalk cross which was cut into a hillside at Lenham in 1922 as a war memorial. A tractor is at work in a field in the foreground, and neat rows of haycocks are visible.
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Paul Carbuncle @paulcarbuncle.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
#oedantedatings 36-year antedating of broadcast (adv. sense a.) 'scattered widely over a suface' (in #OED from 1832) The constant practice of making summer-fallows in many counties for wheat, and sowing beans broad-cast after it, and then recurring to a fallow again ... (1/2)
In a cheery watercolour illustration, a gaily dressed farmer with curly white locks scatters seeds by hand over a field. His waist-high seedlip is hung around his neck. A plough-team of two horses is at work in another part of the field. We are drawn to the farmer's bright blue cravat, a distraction from the dead rabbit which droops from his jacket pocket.
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Paul Carbuncle @paulcarbuncle.bsky.social · 25/05/2025
Good people of Nottingham, please join us for some music-making!
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Paul Carbuncle @paulcarbuncle.bsky.social · 24/05/2025
#oedantedatings 143-year antedating of cheese-chamber 'room in which cheese is dried or stored' (in #OED from c.1632) j narke standyng in the chese chamber and oon of the newe small cheyers (1489) Will of Isbell Geffron, Early #Northampton Wills, p. 152
Eight large round white cheeses sit on two wooden shelves. We catch a tiny glimpse of more cheeses on a shelf above. It all smells lovely, I'm sure.
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Paul Carbuncle @paulcarbuncle.bsky.social · 21/05/2025
#oedantedatings 77-year antedating of hunting-horn (in #OED from 1694) Then he maid one of his servants go in unto the park and blow on ane hunting horne, bot assoone as the wyld beastes off divers sortes heard the blowing of the horne, they cam skipping ... (1617) [1/2]
A medieval hunting scene in open woodland on a bright day. A stag flees from a band of huntsmen, some on horseback, some with hounds. Three of the huntsmen are blowing curved horns.
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Paul Carbuncle @paulcarbuncle.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
Anyone for Poppitt? substack.com/@paulcarbuncle
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Paul Carbuncle @paulcarbuncle.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
This is a magnificent piece of work. Yksi kaksi kolme dialektologiaa!
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Paul Carbuncle @paulcarbuncle.bsky.social · 18/05/2025
Been digging into another surname - Dunningham. substack.com/@paulcarbuncle
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Reposted by Paul Carbuncle
SF Said @whatsfsaid.bsky.social · 14/05/2025
An island of strangers? Just imagine British children's books without the work of migrants & their children – all of these & more! www.sfsaid.com/2017/02/one-...
Graphic showing British children's book covers: Matilda, The Tiger Who Came To Tea, Meg and Mog, Coming To England, The Gruffalo, Who's Going On A Bear Hunt, Horrid Henry, Journey To The River Sea, A Monster Calls, How I Live Now, Noughts & Crosses, The Girl Of Ink & Stars, Tall Staroy, Oliver & The Seawigs, Face, Varjak Paw
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Paul Carbuncle @paulcarbuncle.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
"This Land Was Your Land" youtu.be/8EWRk23bY5A
youtu.be
Paul Carbuncle - This Land Was Your Land (Dave Collins cover, May 2025)
YouTube video by Paul Carbuncle
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Paul Carbuncle @paulcarbuncle.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
I wrote this in 2014 when F**age was becoming a constant fixture on the BBC. Haven't played it for years. Now it sadly feels timely again. Here's the Starmer update of "Rivers of Blood". youtu.be/PXi69telJo0
youtu.be
Paul Carbuncle - Rivers Of Blood (Starmer version May 2025)
YouTube video by Paul Carbuncle
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Paul Carbuncle @paulcarbuncle.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
I've resumed Substacking, if anyone fancies some new surname etymologies? Got a fresh batch on the way starting with Tatlock: substack.com/@paulcarbuncle
Albert Tatlock, the Coronation Street character, in his cap and specs.
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Paul Carbuncle @paulcarbuncle.bsky.social · 15/05/2025
#oedantedatings 13-year antedating of #tennis court (in #OED from 1564) iij burgage ... with a tenys cowrt with a toft of grounde in whiche standeth a lytle house ... (1551) [in Bridport] #EPNS Place-Names of #Dorset 4, p. 360
This may be the most difficult image I've ever tried to describe! It's a black and white etching, and I can confidently say there are four players, playing doubles. Beyond that, God only knows! There are balls everywhere. All the players seem to be thwacking thin air at once. The spectators, safely enclosed in some kind of penthouse, are barely watching the game. I have no idea what's going on.
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Paul Carbuncle @paulcarbuncle.bsky.social · 10/05/2025
#oedantedatings 252-year antedating of stack-yard 'rick-yard' (in #OED from 1569) Stakkeyarde (1317) #EPNS Place-Names of #Nottinghamshire, p. 283
A dog supervises as three humans unload hay from a horse-drawn cart and place it upon an impressively large rick. Good work, that dog!
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Paul Carbuncle @paulcarbuncle.bsky.social · 07/05/2025
#oedantedatings 211-year antedating of horse-grass ‘area of grazing land sufficient to feed a horse’ (in #OED from 1493) le Horsgres (1282) #EPNS Place-Names of #Nottinghamshire, p. 282 OED’s earlier quote (ante 1000) belongs under garston ‘paddock’, not here.
The Oxford English Dictionary entry for horse-grass. The first example cited is “Onbutan ðone horsgærstun”, from a tenth-century text published in John Mitchell Kemble's ‘Codex Diplomaticus Aevi Saxonici’.
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LeifH @lhdinton.bsky.social · 03/05/2025
Just had one of those wonderful ALT text moments...
Screenshot of Stuzi's picture of trump as the pope with a previous ALT text stating "Andrea Jenkyns in yellow dress giving people the finger gesture".
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Paul Carbuncle @paulcarbuncle.bsky.social · 03/05/2025
#oedantedatings 79-year antedating of pinnocky ‘consisting of sticky red clay mixed with small stones’ (in #OED from 1875) Coomby and pinnacky soils are nearly under the same system [of crop-rotation] as the clay already described (1796) John Boys, A General View of the Agriculture of #Kent p. 73
Photo of crop cultivation on red clayey soil. Two rows of shoots and green leaves are beginning to appear, next to a number of apparently empty furrows.
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Paul Carbuncle @paulcarbuncle.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
#oedantedatings 165-year antedating of horse-monger ‘dealer in horses’ (in #OED from a.1400) Horsmongeres-streta (c.1235) [in Oxford] #EPNS Place-Names of #Oxfordshire, p. 38
Oil painting by Alfred James Munnings - "The Horse Fair (A Suffolk Fair)" (1904). Half a dozen men, two smoking pipes and all but one wearing hats, evaluate a fine looking horse on a grassy spot beside the tents and stalls of a busy outdoor market. One chap seems to be trying to check the horse's teeth. The white-suited horse trader looks rather unimpressed by whatever his potential customers are mumbling. There are no women to be seen. Another horse looks on dolefully.
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Paul Carbuncle @paulcarbuncle.bsky.social · 28/04/2025
#oedantedatings 78-year antedating of toll-hall ‘hall where tolls are collected, town-hall’ (in #OED from 1395) La Tolhalle (1317) [in Bridport] #EPNS Place-Names of #Dorset 4, p. 360
Oil painting by Bernard Finnigan Gribble - "The Old Custom House at Poole, Dorset" (1937). A grand three-storied Georgian brick building, with twin stairways to a first-floor entrance, stands at a road junction by the quayside. A handful of people are walking along or interacting in the streets, and steam rises from the funnels of ships in the harbour.
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Paul Carbuncle @paulcarbuncle.bsky.social · 26/04/2025
Twang twang warble warble slurp slurp
Gig poster: Paul Carbuncle performing at The Bulls Well, 7–15 Main Street, Bulwell, Nottinghamshire, NG6 8QH, on Saturday 26th April. 8pm start. Free admission.
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Paul Carbuncle @paulcarbuncle.bsky.social · 24/04/2025
#oedantedatings 322-year antedating of fish-stall (in #OED from 1818) the ffyssh stall as yt standyth in the fysh market in the town of Northampton (1496) a ffysshstall now in the tenur of William Sywell fyssher (1503) Wills of John & Annes Esex, Early #Northampton Wills, NorthantsRS 42: 212,232
Oil painting by Gillian Roberts - "The fish stall, Borough Market". The stallholder, wearing blue overalls and a flat-cap, is serving several customers in a busy street scene. The style is impressionist, and many details are left to the imagination, yet the fish shine unmistakably.
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Reposted by Paul Carbuncle
Stephen Collins @stephencollins.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
Beaver's Return - A new ltd edition print in my shop at www.stephencollinsillustration.com/shop/
Print for sale of a comic by Stephen Collins. Script as follows:

Scene is a British WOODLAND by a RIVER. A NATURALIST is stood next to a cage, and TV NEWS REPORTERS are filming him and the cage. 

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NATURALIST:
And now It is my great honour 

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NATURALIST:
to reintroduce the first wild beaver 
back into Britain 

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[Cut to the BEAVER’S CAGE. Its door is open and the Beaver is leaned nonchalantly up against the opening, smoking a cigarette.]

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BEAVER:
Well, well, well.

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BEAVER:
Look who's come crawling back.

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BEAVER:
Got a rubbish ecosystem have ya? 

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BEAVER:
Not happy with the *critical anti-flood infrastructure* engineered by the flippin *badgers*?

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BEAVER:
I almost didn't recognise you without one of my ancestors on your head…

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BEAVER:
First you wipe us out… now you ask us to come back and build dams for free…
You actually expect me to be *pleased* don’t ya? 

NATURALIST:
I'm so sorry I…I…

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BEAVER:
“Ooh la la, the Brits have come crawling back…”
Do I look like *Michel flippin’ Barnier*?

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NATURALIST:
I-if there’s some kind of… *remuneration* we could offer I-I’m sure…

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BEAVER [throwing cigarette to the ground]:
Unlimited pond weed, two tickets to Abba Voyage. 

NATURALIST:
Done.

[ends]
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Paul Carbuncle @paulcarbuncle.bsky.social · 21/04/2025
#oedantedatings 196-year antedating of conifer (in #OED from 1851) Coniferslad (1655), Conifer Sladd (1728) [in Little Barningham] #EPNS Place-Names of #Norfolk Part 3, p. 58
Photo of a conifer plantation in a shallow valley.
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Paul Carbuncle @paulcarbuncle.bsky.social · 20/04/2025
#oedantedatings 124-year antedating of watermill (in #OED from 1371) le Watermulne (1247) #EPNS Place-Names of #Warwickshire, p. 331
Oil painting by Jacob van Ruisdael - "Landscape with a watermill and men cutting reed" alias "Watermill near a farm" alias "A thatch-roofed house with a water mill" (c. 1653).
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Paul Carbuncle @paulcarbuncle.bsky.social · 19/04/2025
Notts friends - free gig at the King Billy tonight! I'm told the start time is 6pm, but I don't believe it.
Dull poster for a gig tonight, Saturday 19th April, at The King Billy, 6 Eyre Street, Sneinton, Nottinghamshire, NG2 4RG. The line-up is Paul Carbuncle, Babar Luck, and Gab De La Vega. Free admission.
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Paul Carbuncle @paulcarbuncle.bsky.social · 18/04/2025
Matte är inte mitt starkaste ämne, men jag tror att han faktiskt minskar klyftan.
A piece of paper, in the grip of a green turtle fridge-magnet, on which are written the words "How old? Universe 13.7 billion years, Sun 4.6 billion years, Earth & Moon 4.5 billion years, Farfar 79 years (crossed out), 80 years (crossed out), 81 years".
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Reposted by Paul Carbuncle
Rebecca Jane Morgan @rebeccajanemorgan.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
My analysis of what the Supreme Court ruling means: This ruling has a strong feeling of Corbett v. Corbett about it - that's the 1970 case in which the judge ruled that there is no such thing as a "change of sex" in law, with terrible consequences for trans rights. Like in Corbett, the ...
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Reposted by Paul Carbuncle
Stephen Collins @stephencollins.bsky.social · 17/04/2025
An old one from 2013 about celebrity space flights, which I am very much All For
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Paul Carbuncle @paulcarbuncle.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
Elk. Alces alces. Elk. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
Sweden's Great Moose Migration: Millions watch 24-hour rolling livestream
Millions of people have tuned in to watch moose on the move in northern Sweden over the past six years.
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Paul Carbuncle @paulcarbuncle.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
#oedantedatings 100-year antedating of cherry-tree (in #OED from c.1400) Chirretreaker (c.1300) [in Calthorpe] #EPNS Place-Names of #Norfolk Part 3, p. 70
Photo of an avenue of cherry-trees in blossom, in a park, on a sunny day. Pink fluffy blossom on the branches and on the ground.
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Reposted by Paul Carbuncle
carringtontriangle.bsky.social @carringtontriangle.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
Next guests at Carrington Triangle (The Gladstone, NG5 2AW): Hase Waits on Weds 14 May.
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Paul Carbuncle @paulcarbuncle.bsky.social · 10/04/2025
#oedantedatings 21-year antedating of bound-stone (in #OED from 1602) lapid’ voc’ the Bonde stones apud Cokes (1581) [in Winterborne Came] #EPNS Place-Names of #Dorset 1, p. 264
Black and white photo showing a boundary stone standing next to a sign-post at the junction of two rural lanes.
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