Posted by Peter H on October 16, 2008 at 18:59:04 user Peter_H.
In Reply to: Re: Where is Bigland? posted by Robert Hill on October 16, 2008 at 16:59:35:
Don’t worry, Robert, you’re not alone. Sometimes TarBoard posts just won’t say what you want them to say . . .
Anyway, the inference that ‘Bigland’ is not local (as has been pointed out) raises wider issues. Is ‘Bigland’ the real name of the place referred to? There are mainly two types of place-name in the ‘Lake’ books:- (1) obviously made-up names by the children (“Rio”, “Kanchenjunga”); (2) more distant places for which the children use the real names (Skiddaw, High Street, Carlisle, Isle of Man). There is also an anomalous category: place names which have been changed, not by the children but by AR for his own reasons (“Strickland Junction” instead of Oxenholme). It all gets a bit complicated.
I did once think of getting a map of the Lakes and drawing a boundary line to enclose the places with S&A ‘made-up’ names, and excluding locations which retain their real names in the books, and seeing what happens. I never did it, and I don’t think I will, as it might come dangerously near being one of AndyB’s “uber-nurdish tendencies” ;-)