eBay: Paging the squirrelisti

Taxidermy, FOX SQUIRREL on a chopper motorcycle #82
Item number: 110106077146
Here is a new, professionally mounted by us, Fox Squirrel going down the
road riding his chopper - Big Red was just Born To Be Wild! He likes riding
his chopper motorcycle like a Hell's Angel spreading Peace man. This mount
is tastefully done and is of very high quality. The motorcycle is made out
of metal and is of incrediable detail. This would make a nice Father's Day
gift, or for any fan of bikes or Peace.

 

Have you recently received a serious blow to the head?

 

No, I was born like this.

 

Would you ... err ... like a serious blow to the head?

Um?

 

What's this: the Beds retrophrenology clinic?

 

"Beds"?

 

hmmm - whilst I can see "Bedfordshire" being "Beds" and "Hertshire"
being "Herts", why on earth is "Hampshire" "Hants"?

 

Or "Shopshire" "Salop".

 

"The abbreviated form is derived from the Old English Hantum plus Scir
(meaning a district governed from the settlement now known as
Southampton) and the Anglo-Saxons called it Hamtunschire. At the time of
the Domesday Book (1086) this was compressed to Hantescire."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampshire

 

The origin of the name "Shropshire" is the Old English
"Scrobbesbyrigsci-r" (literally Shrewsburyshire), perhaps taking its
name from Richard Scrob (or FitzScrob or Scrope), the builder of
Richard's Castle near what is now the town of Ludlow. However, the
Normans who ruled England after 1066 found both "Scrobbesbyrig" and
"Scrobbesbyrigscir" difficult to pronounce so they softened them to
"Salopesberia" and "Salopescira". Salop is the abbreviation of these.
When a council for the county was set up in 1888, it was called "Salop
County Council". The name was never popular, with local MP Jasper More
raising an amendment to the 1972 Local Government Bill to rename the
county "Shropshire"[2] - at the time the council itself opposed the
change, although later, in 1980, would exercise its power to legally
change the name of the county.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salop

 

No shit, Sherlock!

 

or maybe they just thought the locals were slappers.

 

The origin of the name "Shropshire" is the Old English

I like this bit from the wikipedia article:

"Geographically, Shropshire is divisible into two distinct halves -
North and South."

 

Did Normands speak French? I'd check the meaning of "salope".

 

Are you referring to the Yellow Peril?

 

the current meaning?

http://www.wordreference.com/fren/salope

or the meaning at the time?

hint: the word "slapper" in english is a direct transliteration

 

That was the pretended joke.

Au jour d'hui je me coucherais moins bete.

 

It's the old name for it, innit

Every few years they spend millions changing it from one to the other
then back again

And which ever it is, someone from Shropshire is a Salopian

Salop is also the out-of-towners name for Shrewsbury

 

Why do you think they changed it ?