There is a place in Lancashire in the north west of England called Oswaldtwistle [ˈɒzəl.twɪzəl], which a friend went to after visiting me yesterday. Naturally, as we’re linguists, we wondered where the name Oswaldtwistle came from and what it might mean. My friend thought it might have something to do with Saint Oswald, who was King of Northumbria from about 604-642 AD.

According to Wikipedia there is a legend that St Oswald passed though the area and gave his name to it. The twistle part comes from an old English word meaning “brooks meet”. Alternatively the village might been named after a local Oswald.

The word twistle, which I really like the sound of, apparently means a boundary stream and literally means “double, forked”. It comes from the Middle English twisel/twisil, from the Old English twisla (confluence, junction, fork of a river or road), from the Proto-Germanic *twisilą (fork, bifurcation), from the Proto-Indo-European *dwis- (twice, in two). It is cognate with the German Zwiesel (fork). [source. It also appears in the names Entwistle and Tintwistle.