CAN you tell me why, years ago, the letter 's' was replaced by the letter 'f'. - W Sewell, Bishop Auckland.

THE English alphabet was originally written in ancient Anglo-Saxon runes where the 's' resembled something between the 's' and a 'z' of today. The Anglo-Saxons abandoned the runic script in favour of the Latin alphabet, which more closely resembled the letters of today, but there were still strange letters in the Anglo-Saxon alphabet. These included a letter called the 'eth' and another called the 'thorn'. 'Eth' was a voiced (hard) 'th' sound and was represented by a symbol resembling a 'd'. The thorn symbol (a soft th sound) looked like a combination of 'b' and a 'p'. In some forms of handwriting this thorn symbol was written as a 'y' and gave rise to the 'olde English' word 'Ye' (as in 'ye olde') which was actually pronounced 'thee'. In the Anglo-Saxon period, 's' looked more like an 'r' and was thus less like our modern 's' than its earlier rune. In later medieval times this 'r' shape started to resemble an 'f' and it persisted as late as the 18th Century. It can still be found on gravestone inscriptions in old churchyards. The use of 'f' for 's' seems to have died out by the 20th Century, but was most persistent in words where a double 's' occurs like gross (grofs) or mess (mefs).

EAST of Durham City on the A181 there are two place names which are unusual. Sylm, or Silent, Bank and Witch Hill. - David Palmer, Castle Eden.

Ordnance Survey maps of Durham all call this bank Silent Bank, but I have also heard it called Sylum or Silum bank. The reason may lie in the road's position half way between Durham and Hartlepool. In days gone by, criminals could seek sanctuary or asylum in Durham Cathedral for 30 days. Once the criminal's time was up, they would be forced to leave the country, or stay and face punishment. Those who chose to leave would be escorted from parish to parish to the port of Hartlepool. So Silent Bank could be a corruption of Asylum Bank - the departing route of the asylum seekers. Another theory I have heard is that Silent Bank is a corruption of Signing Bank, where pilgrims would sign themselves with the cross on seeing Durham Cathedral for the first time.

Published: Monday, January 28, 2002

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