Re: What color is the Rother?

At 5:41:19 PM on Wednesday, October 10, 2012, Rick
McCallister wrote:

> I'm no expert on British topos but Rutherford is
> /r@...@rd/ with a /dh/, I was assuming that Rother was
> /ra:D(r)/. Can someone confirm the pronunciation?

From the spelling I'd expect the RP pronunciation to be
/rɒðǝ/ (/rA.D@/).

> Rutherford, as a surname, does have variants such as
> "Rudderford", "Redford", etc. I'm following the
> traditional explanation that it means "red ford"

The Scottish place-name is almost certainly from OE <hrȳðera
ford> 'cattle-ford', ME <rother> and many variants; see

<http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/m/mec/med-idx?type=id&id=MED37924>.

Brian