ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1341 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1341 ************************************ 24 Nov 1998 From: Jodi McMaster Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You asked whether "Palerim" (as in a rim that is pale in color) is an appropriate recreation of a period English placename, as you are considering this as a Shire name. The idea you are trying to convey is plausible, but this particular combination is an unlikely construction, despite the fact that both "pale" and "rim" were used in late-period English. The first half of the proposed name, , in the sense of "ashen, light-colored," was used to describe the coloration of people and things as early as the 14th century. [1] Despite the period usage of the word in general, we did not find it used as part of any English placenames in period. This could be because the majority of English towns and major geographic features were already named, in some form, before the word was borrowed into Middle English from Old French. There are some place names beginning with or , but they did not arise out of the word indicating a light color. [2] The second part of your proposed name, <-rim>, comes from the Old English meaning a "rim, border, bank, coast." [2] As part of a compound place name, we found the following instances of this root: Remenham Rimpton Rimswell Rimington Ringwood We also found it as an independent placename: (1229, 1293), (c. 1160), and (1280, 1298). You have probably noticed the same pattern we did: the part of the name came first in all of these compounds. We think it's because the word is generally used as a modifier to describe the location in the sense of a "boundary"; e.g., is the town on the border and is the well at the boundary. Your name would mean "white boundary", and we didn't find any compound name in which "boundary" is the substantive element, modified by an adjective. Based on our knowledge of English place names, we don't think that "white boundary" is a concept likely to have been the basis of a place name. There are lots of place names which describe something as white, but the thing itself is always very concrete: "white cliff" 13th C, "white hill" 1195, 1382. In summary, because we can find no example of used in a place name nor any example of used as a substantive element in a compound, we do not recommend as a good re-creation of medieval English place naming. We can suggest an alternative to that has a similar meaning, though. The Old English word , meaning 'escarpment', is found as the substantive part of the following compound place names: 'broad escarpment', 'stony escarpment', 'holly escarpment', and 'stone escarpment'. [3] Following this pattern, a name meaning 'white escarpment' should be possible. The Old English word for 'white' is . When adjusted for grammatical requirements [4], we can postulate or in the 13th century and probably an eventual . We hope this letter has been helpful. Please write us again if any part of it has been unclear or if you have other questions. Arval Benicoeur, Alan Fairfax, and Talan Gwynek contributed comments and/or research for this letter. For the Academy, AElfwyn aet Gyrwum __________________ References: [1] --, _The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary_ (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973). [2] Ekwall, Eilert, _The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-names_, 4th edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991). [3] Smith, A.H., _English Place-Name Elements_ (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1956), s.v. ecg. [4] The OE would be , in the dative after a locative preposition . This is the likely grammatical construction of a place-name, and before a vowel the inflexional <-n> is likely to be preserved (as in and , from and respectively).