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> named his new publishing start-up Fishkorn this year after seeing the name on Google Maps. “It rolls off the tongue,” he said And there you have it, the exac

> named his new publishing start-up Fishkorn this year after seeing the name on Google Maps. “It rolls off the tongue,” he said And there you have it, the exact same process that gave rise to all toponyms. It's debatable if Google has a fault for unwittingly altering a random walk. Your older Fiskhorn is no more 'right' than my new Fishkorn, and in many ways worse. If consensus forms, by whatever means, that's what's right.

smallnamespace 8y ago
> If consensus forms, by whatever means, that's what's right. Seems a bit strange that you combined an absolute prescriptivist stance ('what's right') in support of an absolute descriptivist one. It's not logically self-consistent: what if a consensus forms that your view here is wrong?
- bumholio 8y ago
  There is no inconsistency, just a missing set of quotes around "right" - I hold there is no right or wrong in this matter. I don't reject the right of the people living in the area to try to influence the concensus - they might have even a financial stake in imposing "Lakeview Heights" over "East End Projects". But do they have a fundamental right to self name?
- tialaramex 8y ago
  The question wasn't about how to determine all truths, only truths about what things are named. For example, a bridge was constructed in central London named William Pitt bridge, named for the Prime Minister. But people didn't _call_ it "William Pitt Bridge", people called it "Blackfriars Bridge", because they'd always named that part of London "Blackfriars" and that's where the bridge was. Today the replacement bridge is just named "Blackfriars Bridge", nobody bothered writing "William Pitt" and being ignored. It is still named Blackfriars Bridge to this day, even though the adjacent railway station, named Blackfriars, is actually in the form of a bridge, crossing the same river, if referring to _this_ bridge people call it "Blackfriars Railway Bridge". But even though consensus is the appropriate tool for figuring out what these bridges are _called_ we certainly shouldn't use it to figure out when they were built - what they're made of - which country they're in and so on.
reaperducer 8y ago
Your older Fiskhorn is no more 'right' than my new Fishkorn I'm not so sure. "Fiskhorn" was probably named after a person or family. Like The Bronx in New York. Changing it to "Fishkorn" erodes the neighborhood's history. If you've lived most of your life in newer states, you may be used to made up place names. But in older cities/towns/states, place names have meaning. Often historic meanings. Knowing a little bit about the local history, you can read a story just by looking at a map. Changing historic place names doesn't make the new names "right" just because the person who made the change thinks it's so.
- abrahamepton 8y ago
  Yeah but those "historic meanings" change all the time, and names shift because what's easy to pronounce wins over what's "correct". This is a digital equivalent of a very, very, very old process utterly intrinsic to human civilization.
- raldi 8y ago
  The Bronx was a corruption of the name of the Bronck family. Why do you see that change as more legitimate than Fishkorn?
  - reaperducer 8y ago
    Because "The Bronx" and "The Bronck's" are homonyms.
    - raldi 8y ago
      How do you feel about "Tribeca" and "Times Square"?

smallnamespace 8y ago

> If consensus forms, by whatever means, that's what's right. Seems a bit strange that you combined an absolute prescriptivist stance ('what's right') in support of an absolute descriptivist one. It's not logically self-consistent: what if a consensus forms that your view here is wrong?

bumholio 8y ago
There is no inconsistency, just a missing set of quotes around "right" - I hold there is no right or wrong in this matter. I don't reject the right of the people living in the area to try to influence the concensus - they might have even a financial stake in imposing "Lakeview Heights" over "East End Projects". But do they have a fundamental right to self name?
tialaramex 8y ago
The question wasn't about how to determine all truths, only truths about what things are named. For example, a bridge was constructed in central London named William Pitt bridge, named for the Prime Minister. But people didn't _call_ it "William Pitt Bridge", people called it "Blackfriars Bridge", because they'd always named that part of London "Blackfriars" and that's where the bridge was. Today the replacement bridge is just named "Blackfriars Bridge", nobody bothered writing "William Pitt" and being ignored. It is still named Blackfriars Bridge to this day, even though the adjacent railway station, named Blackfriars, is actually in the form of a bridge, crossing the same river, if referring to _this_ bridge people call it "Blackfriars Railway Bridge". But even though consensus is the appropriate tool for figuring out what these bridges are _called_ we certainly shouldn't use it to figure out when they were built - what they're made of - which country they're in and so on.

reaperducer 8y ago

Your older Fiskhorn is no more 'right' than my new Fishkorn I'm not so sure. "Fiskhorn" was probably named after a person or family. Like The Bronx in New York. Changing it to "Fishkorn" erodes the neighborhood's history. If you've lived most of your life in newer states, you may be used to made up place names. But in older cities/towns/states, place names have meaning. Often historic meanings. Knowing a little bit about the local history, you can read a story just by looking at a map. Changing historic place names doesn't make the new names "right" just because the person who made the change thinks it's so.

abrahamepton 8y ago
Yeah but those "historic meanings" change all the time, and names shift because what's easy to pronounce wins over what's "correct". This is a digital equivalent of a very, very, very old process utterly intrinsic to human civilization.
raldi 8y ago
The Bronx was a corruption of the name of the Bronck family. Why do you see that change as more legitimate than Fishkorn?
- reaperducer 8y ago
  Because "The Bronx" and "The Bronck's" are homonyms.
  - raldi 8y ago
    How do you feel about "Tribeca" and "Times Square"?