 "Roddam" is used by Egar (1897) and also by Skertchly (1877); in Skertchly's case, as a local term "used only in the Isle of Ely".The "Oxford English Dictionary" quotes an even earlier written source of "roddam" as Wright (1857).Toponymist Richard Coates (2005) agrees that whilst roddon is now the normal geographical term, the older form, "–(h)am", rejected by Fowler, was in fact the correct local term, and writers who followed Fowler are wrong.