Zetland is the old name for Shetland, and it survives mainly in a marquess’s title and a South Kensington pub
The Zetland Arms sits near South Kensington with three thousand four hundred and twenty-one reviews and a 4.3, and it is named after a place that no longer goes by that name.
Zetland is Shetland
“Zetland” is the old, formal spelling of Shetland – the northernmost islands of Scotland, closer to Norway than to Edinburgh. For centuries the islands were officially “Zetland,” and the county council was Zetland County Council right up until 1975, when it was finally renamed to match the way everyone had actually pronounced it for generations.
The “Z” is a fossil of a lost letter. Older Scots used a character called “yogh,” which looked a bit like a “z” and was pronounced like a “y.” When printing arrived, printers who did not have the yogh substituted a “z,” and a great many Scottish words and names ended up spelled with a “z” that should be a “y.” “Menzies” is really “Mingis.” “Dalziel” is “Dee-ell.” And “Zetland” is, underneath, “Yetland” – a version of the same Norse root that gives us Shetland.
How it got to Kensington
The pub is named not directly after the islands but after the Marquess of Zetland, a title held by the Dundas family, who took their title from the old name for Shetland and who owned land and had connections that scattered the name across England in the form of pubs, streets and estates.
This is how a great many pubs get their names: not from the place or thing itself, but from an aristocrat who took his title from that place, and whose name then got attached to buildings on his land or in his honour. The Zetland Arms is, in effect, named after a man named after some islands that have since been renamed. Three layers of removal, and a “z” that should be a “y.”
The pub
A proper, busy South Kensington pub near the museums and the station, doing enormous volume – three and a half thousand reviews is a serious count – and a solid 4.3 across it. It is a Greene King pub, reliable, central, and exactly the kind of place the museum crowd collapses into after a day on their feet.
Verdict
Good busy pub, huge sample, honest score, and a name that is a small monument to a lost letter and a renamed county.
The lost letter
The yogh is worth mourning for a moment. Old and Middle English and Scots had several letters that modern English has lost – the yogh, the thorn (which gave us the “th” sound and survives in fake-antique “Ye Olde,” where the “Y” is really a thorn and should be said “the”), and others besides.
Printing killed them. Early printing presses were imported from continental Europe, and their type sets did not include these English letters, so printers substituted the nearest available shape. The thorn became “y.” The yogh became “z” or “y.” And centuries of English spelling were quietly warped by the limitations of foreign typesetting equipment. The Zetland Arms carries that history in its first letter.
Verdict
Good busy pub, huge sample, honest score, and a name that is a small monument to a lost letter and a renamed county.
Go, have a pint, and remember that you are drinking in the Yetland Arms, really, and always have been.
Alan Nafzger was born in Lubbock, Texas, the son Swiss immigrants. He grew up on a dairy in Windthorst, north central Texas. He earned degrees from Midwestern State University (B.A. 1985) and Texas State University (M.A. 1987). University College Dublin (Ph.D. 1991). Dr. Nafzger has entertained and educated young people in Texas colleges for 37 years. Nafzger is best known for his dark novels and experimental screenwriting. His best know scripts to date are Lenin’s Body, produced in Russia by A-Media and Sea and Sky produced in The Philippines in the Tagalog language. In 1986, Nafzger wrote the iconic feminist western novel, Gina of Quitaque. He currently lives in Holloway, North London. Contact: [email protected]
