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Around the world, there are several places called Soho, getting their names from an acronym-portmanteau-ish composite of local streets or neighbouring areas. But not the original Soho in London. In fact, London's place names are an etymological hotchpotch: landmarks present and long gone; 1000-year-old vanity projects; and Cockfosters.
This is a companion piece to the 99% Invisible episode 'The Soho Effect', about the proliferation of acranamed places.
MO SOHO INFO
Peruse lots of historical and modern pieces about Soho on the Museum of Soho's blog, and find their touch screen exhibit on Sherwood Street.
The Soho Stories app will take you on a walk around Soho and play anecdotes into your ear when you pass notorious places.
There are so many stories of Soho, usually saturated with booze and sex; these ones are quite endearing.
There’s yet another Soho in Britain’s second city, Birmingham. There are acranamers claiming it’s from ‘SOuth HOuse’, but it’s probably a second win for the hunting cry.
Learn about Pittsburgh’s former Soho.
Have a look at the first edition of Roget’s Thesaurus.
Read an 1878 account of Soho, if you can handle the verbosity.
The Londonist was keeping track of the city’s rebranded areas.
Encyclopedia Briannica just tweeted to tell me that ‘acranames’ are actually ‘clipped compounds’. Yeah, but accuracy’s gain is acromanteaus’ loss.
Hungry for more portmanteau words? There's a feastmanteau in the Brunch episode of this show.
There's a transcript of this episode at theallusionist.org/transcripts/soho.
RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
yarak
CREDITS:
Tony Shrimplin is the chair of the Museum of Soho, a grassroots community project which you can find at mosoho.org.uk and twitter.com/TheMuseumOfSoho. Pop into their Bowie's London exhibition, 9-23 April at 35 Beak St. You can also hear him on Soho Radio, Sundays at 10am.
This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman, except for the bit that was produced by Avery Trufelman and 99% Invisible. The music is by Martin Austwick.
Tony and I met in the Soho landmark Black's Club, who very kindly paused the coffee machine while we were talking.
Sound the hunting cries at facebook.com/allusionistshow, twitter.com/allusionistshow and twitter.com/helenzaltzman.
Let's reconvene in two weeks for another of these.
