The expression ‘Silly Suffolk’ has been put into print numerous times in the last two hundred years. Examples are often accompanied by a supposed explanation that ‘silly’ does not have the modern meaning of ‘foolish’, but is a “corruption” of the Middle English word seely meaning ‘holy’, ‘sacred’, or ‘blessed’. In this note it is shown that there are no certain examples of the use of this phrase from before 1819, and during the main period of popularity in the nineteenth century, pejorative meanings close to the modern sense are implied. It is argued that the recent interpretation of ‘holy’ has no historical justification, and that the alleged medieval origin of this epithet is a myth.

@article{PSIAH:2022:Briggs:SillySuffolk,
  author= {Keith Briggs},
  title=  {Silly Suffolk},
  journal={Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History},
  volume= {45},
  number= {2},
  pages=  {295--299},
  year=   {2022},
}