When I was a lad the suffix in the English county names Essex, Sussex and Middlesex use to reduce me to fits of giggles, I'm sure that little boys still get a laugh from such names, but as far as I know puerility has never been used as a reason to suggest that these ancient place names should not be used or be changed.
Can you imagine the outrage and the ridicule any local or national politician would be subject to if they said that these names should be changed in case naughty boys laughed at them?
But yet in Wales the fact that kids might giggle at finding that the Welsh name Y Farteg contains the English word Fart has been raised in both Community and County Councils, been commented on by a former Secretary of State for Wales and yesterday was even the subject of a Question to the First Minister in the Senedd. Incredibly the First Minister's response was that the correct Welsh spelling should not be used for what he called "obvious" reasons.
The only thing that is obvious is that the correct spelling should be used because it is correct.
If the correct spelling gives kids a giggle so what? Personally I prefer to hear the kids laughing than to hear the politicians faux outrage; and if politicians can't understand that kids will still find the Fart Egg joke in Varteg they clearly don't know how little boy's dirty minds work.
