Spellings are vital. Use the wrong spelling and you can end up in the wrong country, at the wrong airport, or divert a coach from England to Wales.
Abbreviations are handy and harmless, right? Wrong. An American who asks for the bus to Oxford instead of Oxford Street will be sent off to the city of Oxford, not merely the road which once headed out of the smaller city of London towards Oxford in the north west.
In London the transport for London site or google maps will give you directions, but wisely check which of the numerous options you wish to use. Do you want the mainline overground station, the underground station, or some other point?
Your Satnav in your car or hire car often offers several options. So getting the spelling right is the first step to finding the right destination.
Edge is spelled with an e at the end. But in English place names we often, over many years, drop the punctuations marks such as apostrophes, as well as the superfluous letters.
So the Edgware road and the Edgware station and the Edgware Road have no E in the middle. This makes life difficult when you are hunting for a restaurant which wants to put an e in the middle.
(It also enables you to spot that Wedgwood with an e in the middle is from a fake factory which has not used a spell checker, or checked the first half of the word.)
But how do you remember which is Hampstead and the spelling of S t a n s t e d.
Being from London, having lived in Hampstead, my instinct is to spell S t a n s t e d with a second a. Now that I know the correct spelling, how do I - and you - remember it?
Old Hampstead sticks to an old spelling. New airport has a new-fangled spelling.
Here's another mnemonic (memory aid). 'Do you want a bed in S t a n s t e d, Ted?' 'No thanks, I'll drive back to London to Hampstead instead.'
Typing my name and signature I notice another anomaly. I'm an English teacher. I teach English but I also come from England.
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, researcher, English teacher.
Author of How To Get Out Of The Mess You're In. (I have a speech on this subject which I have given to groups.)
Abbreviations are handy and harmless, right? Wrong. An American who asks for the bus to Oxford instead of Oxford Street will be sent off to the city of Oxford, not merely the road which once headed out of the smaller city of London towards Oxford in the north west.
In London the transport for London site or google maps will give you directions, but wisely check which of the numerous options you wish to use. Do you want the mainline overground station, the underground station, or some other point?
Your Satnav in your car or hire car often offers several options. So getting the spelling right is the first step to finding the right destination.
Edge is spelled with an e at the end. But in English place names we often, over many years, drop the punctuations marks such as apostrophes, as well as the superfluous letters.
So the Edgware road and the Edgware station and the Edgware Road have no E in the middle. This makes life difficult when you are hunting for a restaurant which wants to put an e in the middle.
(It also enables you to spot that Wedgwood with an e in the middle is from a fake factory which has not used a spell checker, or checked the first half of the word.)
But how do you remember which is Hampstead and the spelling of S t a n s t e d.
Being from London, having lived in Hampstead, my instinct is to spell S t a n s t e d with a second a. Now that I know the correct spelling, how do I - and you - remember it?
Old Hampstead sticks to an old spelling. New airport has a new-fangled spelling.
Here's another mnemonic (memory aid). 'Do you want a bed in S t a n s t e d, Ted?' 'No thanks, I'll drive back to London to Hampstead instead.'
Typing my name and signature I notice another anomaly. I'm an English teacher. I teach English but I also come from England.
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, researcher, English teacher.
Author of How To Get Out Of The Mess You're In. (I have a speech on this subject which I have given to groups.)
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