Sandra Tamarin drank in the Ranger's Roost, Starfall, Hermes. Residents of Coronation Street, Weatherfield, Lancashire, drink in the Rovers Return. (Weatherfield is an hour by Motorway from Lancaster but is also fictional.)
In both cases, the punctuation was not as expected. Thus, "Ranger's Roost," not "Rangers' Roost"; "Rovers Return," not "Rover's Return." Literally, "Rovers" is plural, not possessive, and "Rovers Return" is a sentence.
The two names have different implications. "Ranger's Roost" implies that Starfall residents range elsewhere but return home to roost. I have read the suggestion that "Rovers Return" was originally a warning: those who aspire to better themselves by roving away from their humble Northern origins will learn otherwise and will be obliged to return, sadder but wiser. This was a British social attitude that was becoming redundant when Coronation Street started in 1960. And I never expected to contrast that interminable TV series with Poul Anderson's ever fresh sf.
For an earlier blog reference to "Weatherfield," see here.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
A perhaps simpler explanation for "Rovers Roost" is this: many people who wandered away from home eventually came back to drink at that inn or public house.
Sean
Oops and darn! I meant "Rovers RETURN," NOT "Roost." Drat!
Sean
Sean,
Indeed it is, as the Wikipedia article explains. The newspaper commentator that I read was reading a moral into the name.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I'm naturally glad I was right to think a simpler explanation more likely to be true!
Sean
Rovers who leave and then return have a rather extensive presence in English history...
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