Hertfordshire

Excerpt: The only true and right way of learning geography (which in its widest sense comprehends almost everything connected with the earth) is to become acquainted with the geographyor strictly speaking the topographyand history of the district in which we live. Modern England is split up into a number of main divisions known as counties and in some instances also as shires; the word shire when it is used being added at the end of the county name. Thus we have the county of Essex or the county of Hertford; but whereas in the former case the word shire is never added it may be in the case of the latter. We then have either the county of Hertford or Hertfordshire as the full designation of the territorial unit in which we dwell. In official documents our area is always mentioned under the title of the County of Hertford; but imperfectly educated persons when filling in such documents frequently write the County of Hertfordshire. This is wrong and superfluous; shire being equivalent to county. The word county signifies an area of which a count or earl is the titular head. Here it may be incidentally mentioned that the title Earl is of Saxon origin which it was attempted to replace after the Conquest by the Norman-French Count; the attempt being successful only in the case of an Earls consort who is still known as Countess. It also obtained in the case of County which is thus practically equivalent to Earldom.