Posted by Robin Selby on September 25, 2018 at 03:34:26 user RobinSelby.
In Reply to: Re: What does 'rond' mean? posted by Peter Wagner on September 25, 2018 at 01:40:49:
I had concluded that a rond was an embankment, based on the etymology and the hypothesis that a rond anchor was so called because you fastened it in a rond or embankment. However, Magnus Smith’s interesting sources take one off in different directions.
It is reasonably clear from the book (‘The Norfolk Broads’) to which Magnus provides a link that a rond is land surrounded by an embankment. According to the British Library catalogue, this book was published in 1997. It looks a scholarly piece of work.
The reference to ‘marshy borders of rivers and broads, with beds of reeds and rushes which are called ronds’ is along the same lines, ie a rond is land (though in this case marshier) and not an embankment.
The painting ‘Cattle on the Rond’ shows that the cattle are on raised ground. It might be an embankment, but that is not clear. The artist, Edward Seago, was born in 1910 and died in 1974 – roughly a contemporary of Ransome. He was a Norwich man so should have been familiar with local terms.
So you pays your money and you takes your choice. A rond is either land, or an embankment. As far as Ransome is concerned, a rond is higher than the fields and something which keeps the river from overflowing, therefore an embankment. Although he was interested in dialect, he was only a visitor to the Broads and was probably not an authority.
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