I was looking for words ending in -wells today, so put *wells in the OED search box. As I mentioned in a recent post, the online edition of the OED cannot deal with searches for plurals, so I was taken straight to the Disgusted entry, because 'Tunbridge Wells' was on that page.
Disgusted as a noun with a capital D only went into the OED in June of this year, although the phrase 'Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells' has been common in Britain for decades. Tunbridge Wells is a very pleasant town in Kent in the south-east of England, whose residents are regarded as quintessentially middle-class and genteel. Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells means a member of the public who is complaining vociferously about something. The phrase came about because when people wrote in to complain to a newspaper they would not give their name but would sign themselves 'Disgusted'. The story goes that it was journalists on a Tunbridge Wells newspaper who first had the idea of making up letters themselves and signing them 'Disgusted, Tunbridge Wells'. There was a BBC radio programme with the title Disgusted, Tunbridge Wells in the 1970s.
Residents of Tunbridge Wells have mixed feelings about their reputation. Some don't like being perceived as narrow-minded killjoys, but others find it amusing. The town's tourist shops sell cups and knick-knacks, some with the slogan 'Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells' printed on them and others with 'Delighted of Tunbridge Wells' on them. The shops sell twice as many goods from the 'Disgusted' range (there's a story on this here, and, interestingly, the readers' comments tend to reinforce the stereotype of Tunbridge Wells' residents).
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