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By Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2017-05-10. Revised by … The forms 'Robin Wood' or 'Robin Whood' are sometimes found as variants of 'Robin Hood'. A tentative explanation is offered in the following. The tendency to "drop aitches" in British English is not new. See the page on the allusion 1324 - Louis, count of Flanders - Letter to Edward II or III. In dialects and/or sociolects where initial 'W" could also be dropped, the words 'Hood' and 'Wood' became phonetically indistinguishable. By and large, literate Englishmen were aware that an initial sound had been dropped from the sound sequence represented in spelling by 'ood' and felt a need to supply it when writing, but they sometimes chose the wrong letter (sound). This mistake would be the more likely since 'Hood' and 'Wood' are both surnames. Pages with examples pages illustrate the vacillation between 'Hood' and 'Wood': Notes

By Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2017-06-01. Revised by … The important place-name 'Barnsdale' developed from OE 'Beornsdale' to ME 'Bern(e)sdale' to ModE 'Barnsdale'. According to the foremost authority on Yorkshire place-names, the etymology of "Barnsdale" is "Beorn's valley" (dale), Beorn being an Old English personal name, which occurs also in other place-names, for instance Barnsley (c. 18 km WSW of Barnsdale). Smith, Albert Hugh 1961a, pt. II, p. 37. Here is in outline the process by which "Beorn" became "Barn": # Through an isolative sound change – a change that a sound undergoes irrespectively of the phonetic environment in which it occurs – the Old English diphthong /eo/ See Wikipedia: Old English Phonology. For simplicity's sake I ignore the distinction between short and long Old English diphthongs which, I believe, is not relevant here. Since it does no harm here, I also do not uphold a terminological distinction between 'phoneme' and 'sound'. Phonemes are put …