Allusionist 32: Soho

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 hotchpo...

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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.

- HZ