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One of the things I can‘t really get my head round – one of the many – are where names came from. Why and when, for instance, did ‘amble’ become ‘ramble?’ And was ‘Ambleside’ so named because people like to amble there, or did people start ambling in Ambleside because it sounded like their sort of place? Then there are those times where people’s names just happen to coincide with their chosen vocation. Did Ricky Lightfoot and Sarah Ridgway decide to become mountain runners because their names demanded they should at least give it a go, or did they just happen to have a name that suited their hobby? I recently discovered the names of the guys who held the first speed record for the Cuillin Ridge: the almost ludicrously brisk sounding MacLaren and Shadbolt. The name for this – according to our staff writer Sarah Ryan, who is in no way associated with airlines or Tom Clancy characters – is aptronym. So if you ever meet a Dr Docktor, a Mr McCracken the chiropractor, a meteorologist called Sara Blizzard and – my personal favourite – a priest called Cardinal Sin, you can impress them by saying you know a word that sums them up. Which brings me to the debate we had in the office this month as to what constitutes the thing people call a mountain ‘horseshoe’. In the end we took it back to basics. Yes, you can see where you’ve been, see where you’re going and you’re dropped back to where you started. But basically, if you draw it on a map, it looks like a bit like a horse’s shoe. Sometimes a name is all you really need.
Simon Ingram, editor Twitter @MrSimonIngram