WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 1 00:00:00.080 --> 00:00:03.040 There are lots of places in the  world which have the same name twice. 2 00:00:03.040 --> 00:00:04.400 Places like the Sahara Desert: 3 00:00:04.400 --> 00:00:06.400 well, Sahara comes from the Arabic for "desert", 4 00:00:06.400 --> 00:00:08.160 so that's the Desert Desert. 5 00:00:08.160 --> 00:00:10.480 Or the River Avon. Avon originally meant "River", 6 00:00:10.480 --> 00:00:12.160 so it's the River River. 7 00:00:12.160 --> 00:00:15.360 There are a few triple names  like that in the world, but this, 8 00:00:15.360 --> 00:00:18.800 Torpenhow Hill in the Lake  District, in north-west of England, 9 00:00:18.800 --> 00:00:22.640 is the only place in the world with  four words that all mean the same thing. 10 00:00:22.640 --> 00:00:23.920 Tor, Old English for hill. 11 00:00:23.920 --> 00:00:25.360 Penn, Old Welsh for hill, 12 00:00:25.360 --> 00:00:27.840 How, Old English for a slightly  different kind of hill, 13 00:00:27.840 --> 00:00:29.360 and finally modern English, hill. 14 00:00:31.120 --> 00:00:34.400 I know it's not a massively  impressive place, but the name's good. 15 00:00:35.200 --> 00:00:38.560 Except that's a story that's been debunked quite a few times. 16 00:00:38.560 --> 00:00:40.720 Double and triple place names  are a thing, that's true. 17 00:00:40.720 --> 00:00:43.520 They tend to happen because  centuries ago locals would name 18 00:00:43.520 --> 00:00:46.880 the nearby hill, or river, or  mountain, or desert, the obvious name, 19 00:00:46.880 --> 00:00:48.080 like, "the hill", 20 00:00:48.080 --> 00:00:49.920 and then when folks with other languages arrived, 21 00:00:49.920 --> 00:00:52.000 for trade or conquest or exploration, 22 00:00:52.000 --> 00:00:53.440 they added their word for it as well. 23 00:00:54.000 --> 00:00:59.280 But the trouble here is: there is no  Torpenhow Hill marked on any official map. 24 00:00:59.280 --> 00:01:01.360 The name's almost certainly a modern invention. 25 00:01:01.360 --> 00:01:04.320 Someone noticed the village of  Torpenhow about a mile away, 26 00:01:04.320 --> 00:01:06.240 and spotted the three words for hill there, 27 00:01:06.240 --> 00:01:09.280 and decided to add the modern  English "hill" to it as well. 28 00:01:09.280 --> 00:01:13.280 And: tor, penn, and how all have more  complicated definitions than "hill". 29 00:01:14.000 --> 00:01:15.840 It's not really "hill hill hill", that village, 30 00:01:15.840 --> 00:01:20.160 you can plausibly translate "torpenhow"  as, well, the land the village sits on: 31 00:01:20.160 --> 00:01:22.880 a small rise jutting out  from a much bigger incline. 32 00:01:22.880 --> 00:01:26.400 This is just a bump on the  side of an actual big hill. 33 00:01:26.400 --> 00:01:28.800 I don't have a drone with me, but  Google Earth shows it well enough. 34 00:01:29.440 --> 00:01:33.600 Also... the village's name is  "Trepenna". It's spelled "Torpenhow", 35 00:01:33.600 --> 00:01:35.840 but the local pronunciation is "trepenna". 36 00:01:36.560 --> 00:01:40.640 So you can tell who's done the research when  this is mentioned in a list of weird place names. 37 00:01:40.640 --> 00:01:43.280 In reality, there's just  the village of "Trepenna". 38 00:01:43.280 --> 00:01:46.720 Tor-pen-how Hill doesn't exist. That's the debunk. 39 00:01:47.920 --> 00:01:49.760 And so now, I'm going to debunk the debunk. 40 00:01:49.760 --> 00:01:53.840 Because if that's true, why am I out  of breath? What did I just climb? 41 00:01:54.720 --> 00:01:59.120 I came up here from the village, it's  a slow steady climb on a country road. 42 00:01:59.120 --> 00:02:03.600 The land around this point is lower, and it  sits right next to Trepenna-slash-Torpenhow. 43 00:02:04.720 --> 00:02:08.160 Now, I'm not going to colonise the Lake District  and tell them how they should be naming things. 44 00:02:08.160 --> 00:02:12.480 But there have been plenty of tourist  attractions built around much less than this. 45 00:02:12.480 --> 00:02:16.640 A good map is like a good dictionary: it  reflects the real world, it doesn't make it. 46 00:02:16.640 --> 00:02:20.160 If people will go to that one tree in  New Zealand that looks good on Instagram, 47 00:02:20.160 --> 00:02:22.240 just because they've seen other pictures of it, 48 00:02:22.240 --> 00:02:24.160 they'd probably come to Hill Hill Hill Hill. 49 00:02:24.800 --> 00:02:27.360 People go to Four Corners in the US  just to be in four states at once,   50 00:02:27.360 --> 00:02:30.720 it's not too weird to think that  people would want to visit here. 51 00:02:31.280 --> 00:02:35.360 Sure, the village is "Trepenna",  but this can be Torpenhow Hill, 52 00:02:35.360 --> 00:02:36.560 if enough people want it to be. 53 00:02:37.600 --> 00:02:42.240 And the thing is: as I record this, if you  type "Torpenhow Hill" into online maps... 54 00:02:42.880 --> 00:02:44.000 quite a few of them point you here. 55 00:02:44.000 --> 00:02:47.520 Actually, just over there, I'll CG in a  giant map marker just to make my point. 56 00:02:48.160 --> 00:02:51.360 The only thing stopping this  officially being "Torpenhow Hill"   57 00:02:51.360 --> 00:02:53.280 is that there's not enough consensus. 58 00:02:53.280 --> 00:02:55.520 So who decides that? 59 00:02:55.520 --> 00:02:57.760 Because I do worry about  coming to places like this. 60 00:02:57.760 --> 00:03:00.320 This is a public footpath, I didn't  have to ask permission to be here, 61 00:03:00.320 --> 00:03:04.400 but I have a duty of care to the locations  I visit, and to people who live there. 62 00:03:05.040 --> 00:03:09.360 That one tree in New Zealand is being  slowly destroyed by tourism and by vandals. 63 00:03:09.360 --> 00:03:13.360 Now, "Trepenna" is far enough off  the tourist trail so, probably, 64 00:03:13.360 --> 00:03:15.760 only a few geography nerds  will bother to trek out here. 65 00:03:15.760 --> 00:03:21.040 But if this did start becoming popular, if  tourists did start arriving at Tor-pen-how Hill, 66 00:03:21.920 --> 00:03:25.520 I do wonder how the locals in the  quiet little village would feel. 67 00:03:25.520 --> 00:03:28.400 Because the signpost that  says this is a public footpath 68 00:03:28.400 --> 00:03:32.320 has mysteriously disappeared since the last  time the Google Street View car came by. 69 00:03:32.320 --> 00:03:33.920 I'm not saying anyone destroyed it, 70 00:03:33.920 --> 00:03:35.920 I'm just saying no-one's bothered to replace it. 71 00:03:35.920 --> 00:03:37.280 So as for how the locals feel? 72 00:03:38.640 --> 00:03:45.840 I probably shouldn't bother them by asking.