| has gloss | eng: The Isis is the name given to the part of the River Thames above Iffley Lock which flows through the city of Oxford. The name is especially used in the context of rowing at the University of Oxford. Historically, and especially in Victorian times, gazetteers and cartographers insisted that the river Thames was correctly named the River Isis from its source until Dorchester-on-Thames, where the river meets the River Thame and becomes the "Thame-isis" (from which the Latin (or pre-Roman Celtic) name Tamesis is derived), subsequently abbreviated to Thames; current Ordnance Survey maps still label the Thames as "River Thames or Isis" until Dorchester. However since the early 20th century this distinction has been lost in common usage outside Oxford, and some historians suggest the name Isis is nothing more than a contraction of Tamesis, the Latin name for the Thames. |
