Why the word Toon?

because watching newcastle united is kinda pointless, silly, and gets boring after a while, not unlike cartoons.

 

May an outsider hazard a guess?

I'm thinking it might have to do with the way the locals pronounce the name of a nearby river, the Tyne. Close?

 

close, its from the way they pronounce 'town'. as in: doon the toon. unfortunately, the term gets very over-used at present, since every tabloid hack seems to feel obliged to use it at least once in every sentence referring to newcastle.

i was wondering what do the fans themselves make of this? it would annoy the hell out of me for sure if they insisted on calling sunderland 'sunlun' or something accent-related like that.

as for magpies, i would have thought that's fairly obvious, isn't it?

 

You'd have to ask the folks who support Notts County - it was their idea.

 

I hate it how every paper and tv channel (especially BBC) attempt to be 'down' with fans and call us the toon or toon army. The fans call Newcastle that and us alone. Call us Newcastle thats are name.
Another thing is how they only show the Tyne or Millenium bridge there ARE other parts of newcastle. Try Scotswood or Blakelaw.

Also why does every commentor refer to Man Utd as Utd when there are two Utd's playing? It pisses me off

 

I was guessing that "Magpies" had something to do with the team colors, yes?

And, forgive my ignorance of local English history, but what is the origin of calling Newcastle the "Geordies"?

 

There are two sides to the story of why Newcastle-area folk are called "Geordies."

ONE
In the early 18th century, the people of Newcastle supported King George, while most of the surrounding Norhumberland region supported the Scottish rebels.

TWO
By the late 18th century, miners (the majority of the populace) were annually paid a golden guinea -- often referred to by Scots as a "geordie" due to it having the likeness of King George.

 

That's two of the reasons that are sometimes given, but there are others:

THREE

When George Stephenson the engineer was elected to parliament, his first speech had to be stopped as no-one could understand his Northumberland (Wylam) accent. As a result, he became the archetype of the Londoner's view of north-easterners who, in his honour, were called "Geordies".

FOUR

With George Stephenson again, he invented a safety lamp that was used by coal miners in Durham and Northumberland. The use of this lamp distinguished them from miners in other areas, who called them Geordies after the inventor of the lamp.

I am sure there are many others, but I don't think anyone can say for sure which is correct.

I think, but don't know, that the explanation from the 1715 Jacobite rebellion is the earliest, so maybe it has the best claim.

 

Interesting. This one looks like the front-runner:

from: http://machaut.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/WEBSTER.sh?WORD=geordie

 

It's worth mentioning that the reason the miners' lights were called "geordies" is because the people of Newcastle were already long being called that.

There are literary references to using the term Geordie for people of the area going back to the late 18th century. I can call them up if people prefer.