Dumbarton In Dunbartonshire?

[badgers apprentice]

don't know if its been asked on here before, but why is it spelt dunbartonshire and not dumbartonshire?

[An Sionnach]

Honestly, youngsters today! A quick Google would have done you!

Dumbarton was formerly the county town, and the county was originally also spelled Dumbartonshire. By the eighteenth century the names "County of Dunbarton" and "County of Dumbarton" were used interchangeably.[1] Different county bodies used the two spellings: the Dunbarton County Constabulary were formed in 1857 by the Commissioners of Supply for the County of Dunbarton.[2] Dumbartonshire County Council, set up under the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889 adopted the spelling "Dunbartonshire" by 1914, a fact recognised by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1947.[3] [4]

The name "Dumbarton" is thought to derive from the Gaelic Dùn Breatainn (Fort of the Britains), but the town stuck with the name Dumbarton, and some people continue to refer to the county as Dumbartonshire.

[badgers apprentice]

Honestly, youngsters today! A quick Google would have done you!

cheers auld yin

[Cliche Guevara]

Although that might raise another question.

As I understand it, in old Scots (?) the prefix 'Dun' represents a nipple style hill. Dundee, Dunfermline, Dundonald etc all seem to attest to this, so should it not be Dunbarton?

As evidenced, to an extent, by Kilt's google reference is it simply the case that the people from Dumbarton were simply too 'dumb' to spell it correctly?

edited: for spelling 'too' incorrectly - hoist by my own smart-arse petard

[Dr Koop]

I always thought 'dun' meant white. There you go. You learn something else every day. Perhaps it's 'Dumbarton' because of a clerical error, which has changed the name of many towns and cities.

[The Old Northerner]

In the 'spoken' language N quite often comes out as M before B and P (assimilation is the Sunday name). If you try it with SNP spoken at a fast rate you'll often hear ess emm pee. Scribal uncertainty does the rest

[Laid Back Maverick]

Although that might raise another question.

As I understand it, in old Scots (?) the prefix 'Dun' represents a nipple style hill. Dundee, Dunfermline, Dundonald etc all seem to attest to this, so should it not be Dunbarton?

As evidenced, to an extent, by Kilt's google reference is it simply the case that the people from Dumbarton were simply too 'dumb' to spell it correctly?

edited: for spelling 'too' incorrectly - hoist by my own smart-arse petard

"Dun" is the Gaelic world for "Fort", usually referring to Iron Age vitrified hill-forts, but can also refer to the crags or hillocks (i.e. "nipple style hill") that these forts were found on.

[Glenconner]

Dun as in "your gonna get dun in"

[the snudge]

Dun as in dunderheid for dredging up pointless threads from 2008

[Venti]

'Dun' as in: "Glenconner is a DUNce for necro'ing this thread"

[Stellaboz]

I've only been made aware of this today. In the match programme against Ayr.... What the f**k you mental West coast bingo bus basses

[Cardinal Richelieu]

I thought threads over 2 years old all got binned?

[tamthebam]

The Grampians shouldn't really be called the Grampians... 

"The Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus recorded Mons Graupius as the site of the defeat of the native Caledonians by Gnaeus Julius Agricola circa 83 AD. The actual location of Mons Graupius, literally 'the Graupian Mountain' (the element 'Graupian' is of unknown significance), is a matter of dispute among historians, though most favour a location within the Grampian massif, possibly at Raedykes, Megray Hill or Kempstone Hill. The spelling Graupius comes from the Codex Aesinas, a mediaeval copy of Tacitus's Germania believed to be from the mid-9th century.[2] "Graupius" was incorrectly rendered "Grampius" only in the 1476 printed edition of Tacitus's biography of Agricola.[3] The name Grampians is believed to have first been applied to the mountain range in 1520 by the Scottish historian Hector Boece, an adaptation of the incorrect Mons Grampius. Thus the range owes its name to this day to a typesetter's mistake. 

[The Mantis]

On 12/07/2008 at 12:22, Laid Back Maverick said:

"Dun" is the Gaelic world for "Fort", usually referring to Iron Age vitrified hill-forts, but can also refer to the crags or hillocks (i.e. "nipple style hill") that these forts were found on.

Yes indeedy. Not forgetting Dùn Èideann or Dunedin for Edinburgh.

[Hillonearth]

There's loads of mistranslations found their way into common usage - next time you take the weans to a pantomime, Cinderella's "glass" slipper should actually be a squirrel fur slipper, which I suppose makes marginally more sense...the original translation mixed up verre and vair which sound fairly similar.

Likewise, when Krushchev said "we will bury you" at the UN, that was only a literal translation; what he actually meant was that the Soviets would outlast and grind the West down in an argument because they had right on their side. Still not friendly, but not threatening a nuclear war as a shiting-itself world thought at the time.

[Ya Bezzer!]

14 hours ago, tamthebam said:

The Grampians shouldn't really be called the Grampians... 

"The Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus recorded Mons Graupius as the site of the defeat of the native Caledonians by Gnaeus Julius Agricola circa 83 AD. The actual location of Mons Graupius, literally 'the Graupian Mountain' (the element 'Graupian' is of unknown significance), is a matter of dispute among historians, though most favour a location within the Grampian massif, possibly at Raedykes, Megray Hill or Kempstone Hill. The spelling Graupius comes from the Codex Aesinas, a mediaeval copy of Tacitus's Germania believed to be from the mid-9th century.[2] "Graupius" was incorrectly rendered "Grampius" only in the 1476 printed edition of Tacitus's biography of Agricola.[3] The name Grampians is believed to have first been applied to the mountain range in 1520 by the Scottish historian Hector Boece, an adaptation of the incorrect Mons Grampius. Thus the range owes its name to this day to a typesetter's mistake. 

Nothing to do with Dumbarton but the first ever recorded 'Scotsman' in history is Calgacus from Tacitus's 'Agricola'.  His name and speech were probably made up but he can be assumed to represent the leader of the Caledonians at the battle at Mons Graupius.