watersplash

I read on a noticeboard by a lock on the Thames (is the information thereon reliable? I suppose about as reliable as on that interweb) that Oxford means not as I had previously thought a place where oxen forded the river, but a place where only oxen could ford, the water being deep there. Hence Shifford (where sheep can cross) Swinford (pigs) and Duxford (ducks), although this latter raises the question of whether ducks need a ford at all. Possibly at Duxford the river is too deep for anything but ducks to cross.

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