Eggcorn Forum

Celtic eggcorns are a bit thin on the ground, so I pass along an etymology recorded by David Crystal in By Hook or Crook. He is discussing the Golden Valley that runs from Wales into Herefordshire.

The valley takes its name from the River Dore. But how do you get from Dore to Golden? The answer is nothing to do with French d’or, ‘of gold’. Dore is an old Celtic name. It has the same origins as Dover. Both come from the early British word dubras, which meant ‘waters’. There was a river at Dover, called the Dour. The one in the Golden Valley is found in Welsh from the twelfth century. It is spelled variously as Estrateur, Istratour, and Stratdour. The name is a combination of Welsh ystrad (‘valley’) and Dore. It meant ‘Dore valley’ –that is, the valley with a stream in it. But then popular imagination took over. In Old Welsh, our meant ‘gold’. It is aur in Modern Welsh. So it was an easy step from ystrad + dore to ystrad + our, dropping the second d – giving ‘valley of gold’.