Hertfordshire is a county in the southeast of England, just north of London. People live in its towns and villages and many travel into the city for work; it has countryside as well as commuter towns. It is a place name, so it takes a capital H. English people sometimes shorten county names in speech, but this one is usually said in full. Though actually, the spelling is a trap. It starts with Hert-, but the first part sounds like 'hart' (an old word for a male deer), not like 'hurt'. The end, -shire, is the old English word for a county. Learners who read the letters as they look will not be understood.