Discussion Groups / British English / January 2007

Not at all. Someone gave you a probably correct answer, though I can't
remember who or what it was. The surname comes from a placename (we
haven't used the form "of Xxxx", as in the French "de Xxxx" or the Dutch
"van Xxxxx" for hundreds of years).

To find the correct etymology, you need to look at early forms of the
name, as spelling can change greatly from the original form. The word
was not originally written, and when it was first written down, for
Domeday Book, a charter, or a terrier for example, the scribe would have
had to make some assumption about the way the name was constructed,
often leading to false etymologies.

"whit" sounds to me like a form of "white", which could be descriptive
or the name of an early owner or occupier. A "worth" was an enclosure,
and although no two placename specialists have ever been known to agree,
my impression is that it has rather more security than a mere "tun".

There are places with this name in Lancashire and Durham at least, and
they could easily have quite different derivations.

The rest of the (facetious) replies concerned the Whitworth screw
thread, created by Joseph Whitworth, a 19th Century pioneer of machine
tool design.

Paul Burke

Not unreasonable guesses - but wrong.  It does illustrate that this is a
field in which you need to consult authoritative reference works, rather
than make guesses.

Yes, well, I suggest we let it die.

16:10, sabato 13 gennaio 2007, Peter Duncanson:

How should I value "nutty"?
(Is this an Americanism?)