Talk:Watford Gap services

Rock bands in the lead

has removed information from the lead that was present in the GA review (see above) and responsible for the Did you know? nomination, where it says it was an important stopping point for 1960s and 1970s rock bands. I think this is important because it takes the article away from a run of the mill bit of architecture to something more significant. What are other people's views? Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 10:45, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

The previous version of the lead seems fine to me - I don't think mentioning the names of the bands or the 50th anniversary is excessive detail. I'm not sure what "clarity" was achieved by omitting this information.-- P-K3 (talk) 13:01, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Indeed, but I want to make sure there's a consensus before hitting "revert". Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 13:17, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

North of the Watford Gap

The text in the 'Location' section currently includes these sentences:

'In popular culture, the Watford Gap is often considered to be a dividing line [sic; it's a point, not a line] that separates the north and the south of England. The phrase "north of the Watford gap" [sic capitalisation] may be shortened to "north of Watford", inviting confusion with the larger town of Watford further south in Hertfordshire that is also linked by the M1.'

This is a common misconception. In fact, the phrase "north of Watford" was first recorded in 1935 and steadily grew in usage over the following decades. There's no recorded use of "north of the Watford Gap" until the 1960s, after people had become familiar with the services. I believe it was felt by some that the town of Watford was too near London to constitute a dividing point between the north and the south of England. This may be reasonable, but the fact remains that the original phrase was "north of Watford". Russ London (talk) 09:25, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

What is your source of information? The current text is cited to two books. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:27, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

One source - see last paragraph 10mmsocket (talk) 13:26, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

The two do seem to be used interchangeably. Take a look at Hansard, for example, and you'll find examples of both. 10mmsocket (talk) 13:25, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for responding to me on this. Just to clarify, I'm not disputing the statement that the Watford Gap is often considered to be a dividing point that separates the north and the south of England. And 'north of the Watford gap' and 'north of Watford' are indeed sometimes used interchangeably. And sometimes not. I'm only questioning the wording of the sentence: "The phrase 'north of the Watford gap' may be shortened to 'north of Watford'." I now see that the cited source (Joe Moran, Reading the Everyday) does indeed say: "This is often abbreviated to 'north of Watford' ...". But he's mistaken in putting that way, as 'north of Watford' came first. However, the only source I can presently cite to back up all the facts I've stated above is Brewer's Dictionary of London Phrase & Fable (Chambers, 2009, p.360–1) and the problem is that I wrote that book – and I can't cite my own research (and I did research it very thoroughly, even going to the British Newspaper Library (as was) to see the first recorded appearance of 'north of Watford' [in the context of a pejorative reference to northerners] in the Evening Standard, 30 May, 1935). I'll try to find some other published evidence to support me on this, but in cases like this it's notoriously hard to prove that a cited source is wrong, which is what I'm trying to do. Nevertheless, I'll add that The Oxford Dictionary of English (third edition, 2015), under its mention of Watford (Herts), devotes several lines to defining the phrase 'north of Watford', including an example of usage, and it makes no mention of the alternative possibility of referring to the Watford Gap, let alone to the idea that 'north of Watford' might be a shortening of 'north of the Watford Gap'. Russ London (talk) 19:43, 1 November 2024 (UTC)