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North Yorkshire apostrophe fans demand road signs with nowt taken out
- chaps 2y agoMaybe don't shout out to the world that you're vulnerable to sql injection?
- BugsJustFindMe 2y ago> to avoid problems with computer systems What a world, eh? Surely someone out there must know the secret incantation to store an apostrophe in a database.
- Towaway69 2y agoCame here to say the same thing. How can it be the case that we change our surroundings so that a computer can make sense of it. Ironically a computer has no problems with apostrophes - it just another digital value - instead the way humans build software causes the problems.
- sverhagen 2y agoWell, having some limitations seems reasonable. I think it's fine we don't allow smileys in street names. Or a while just is extended ASCI characters. It just seems that an apostrophe should be okay. Also weird that a local government gets to make the call.
- NomDePlum 2y agoThey are the ones responsible for street signs. The computer system in this case is also theirs, as would be any cost to change the system to support apostrophes. There is literally no spare budget in UK local government at present. This could be a big factor too in the decision making too.
- noobermin 2y agoEveryone should know the latter point if they don't. People blame and get mad at computers but the real blame lies with software developers and their broken systems.
- aimor 2y agoGoogle screwed up my address by deciding that "E" should be spelled out "East". The county uses "E", the street sign says "E", Bing says "E" (not that they're any authority on the matter), but Google says "East" and now Walmart won't deliver things to my actual address. I don't know a lot about systems/processes/protocol and the correct jargon, but my sense is that the problem isn't just technical. They could support ' just as well as E. But the scale of these automated systems chokes on these little quirks and they get amplified a huge amount and quickly become big problems.
- stevekemp 2y agoI live in Finland, which has two official languages - Finnish & Swedish. Google maps, on Android, decided that all street names are only Swedish when giving directions, and doesn't show Finnish names at all. Even though on the map you can see both. Sucks, especially as I'm a foreigner.
- skirmish 2y agoJust today I was driving around UCLA on "Charles E Young Dr E", which Android Auto insisted on calling "Charles East Young Drive East". It was hilarious, the first "E" apparently stands for "Edward".
- thebruce87m 2y agoWhen Alexa devices first appeared, when you asked for songs by Dick Van Dyke it would beep out his first name when repeating it.
- evanb 2y agoDC is divided into 4 quadrants, and to lift degeneracies they come after street/avenue/road/place etc in an address. So many GPS pronounce 815 V St NW as "eight-fifteeen V saint northwest" instead of "... street ...". Makes me laugh every time.
- paradox460 2y agoUtah gets particularly funny with the coordinate grids used out here. I've heard everything from one thousand three hundred and fifty five east two thousand south to literal readouts of the digits
- emmelaich 2y agoI really don't think that that is the real reason. No traffic sign in Australia has punctation. It's for clarity when reading, nothing else. Safety first.
- viraptor 2y ago(citation needed). What safety/clarity is given by removing apostrophes from names? Especially in the country already using lots of indigenous names forced into almost-English pronunciation?
- eviks 2y agoWhat is the mechanism behind how a different practice in Australia explains the officials lying about the real reason here?
- emmelaich 2y agoGell-Mann amnesia. I don't think they lying; they are probably being selectively quoted and the article written to be as click-baity as possible.
- eviks 2y agoQuoting is visible after you've clicked, so doesn't bait. Not sure how amnesia would explain anything either. > I don't think they lying You can't have it both ways, either the spokesperson explicitly saying it's due to database gives the real reason or a made-up reason, in the latter case he's lying
- andreareina 2y agoMeanwhile, Torvalds' solution is to add more of the problematic characters: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40062853 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40062853
- 000ooo000 2y agoNot even remotely similar
- samtho 2y agoI loathe the respective arguments that each side makes. On the counsel (municipal) side, you have a bunch of people who have convinced themselves that we need to punctuation to let computers more easily read names, which is ill-informed in the way computers work. On the other side, you have the classic “it’s just not right” garbage with a tinge of “our great English standards are going to hell in a hand basket” which is ill-informed on how language evolves.
- ganoushoreilly 2y agoI get it, as an Apostrophe Name 'aver I too am forced to remove it for "computers".. "We're all Bobby Tables at heart" https://xkcd.com/327/ https://xkcd.com/327/
- jen729w 2y ago> On the other side, you have the classic “it’s just not right” garbage with a tinge of “our great English standards are going to hell in a hand basket” which is ill-informed on how language evolves. Ooooh I think this is a bit harsh, no? Language does evolve. But Mary’s Walk should have an apostrophe no matter what you say. That apostrophe does work: it conveys information about the thing. Not that it’s important in this context, but in others, it is. So casting as curmudgeonly the desire to keep it is, I think, going too far.
- Terr_ 2y agoThere's also another aspect which has nothing to do with grammar and is simply about someone else imposing a new name over "your" neighborhood. I mean, Mallard Road and Duck Road are both grammatically fine, but if some bureaucrat somewhere decides "Duck is easier to understand and read"...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- petesergeant 2y agoDunno, think you’re trying to eat your cake and have it too here… > Mary’s Walk … [the] apostrophe … conveys information about the thing. Not that it’s important in this context, but in others, it is The only information being conveyed here is a hint at the etymology, though, and as you rightly point out, that’s not important in this context, but it’s also sufficiently incomplete that the inclusion of the apostrophe could mislead. Was Mary a specific local woman, a reference to a biblical figure, a church, the surname of a local farming family, or a weird Northern word for something else? Is it a perversion of an old Danelaw word? Was it always a possessive name, or was that added by an enterprising local sign writer in the 1810s? St Albans is always written without an apostrophe or a dot, where ironically St. Kilda sometimes does have one. I would suggest there are no situations in which this information is important to include in the name itself, and doing so adds a false layer of confidence that place and street names in the UK can be trusted.
- staplung 2y agoMaybe they could get a city council to go the Bobby Tables route and name a street something like: Main');DROP TABLE roads;
- aaron695 2y ago[dead]
- shombaboor 2y agoas long as their not redesigning it so their streets are SEO'd. Mary's Walk Near Me etc.
- tocs3 2y agoOK, is the "nowt" in the headline a word for an apostrophe?
- moberley 2y agoI think in this case it means not having an apostrophe. That is, nothing as opposed to something. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/nowt https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/nowt
- jimlikeslimes 2y agoNowt is used in the north of England to mean nothing.
- spondylosaurus 2y agoGoogle is telling me that it's a specifically a pronoun, which is interesting. Opposite of "it/that" = "nowt"?
- Urahandystar 2y agoThats very wrong. Owt=Anything Nowt= Nothing. "Do you want owt from the shop?". "Nowt mate ta". Is usually how you would hear it.
- spondylosaurus 2y agoOoooh, that makes sense. I didn't know about "owt" either!
- Lio 2y agoNowt is a Northern English idiom for nothing. “Nowt taken out” was an old advertising slogan for Allinson’s Bread[1][2]. 1. https://www.allinsonsbread.co.uk https://www.allinsonsbread.co.uk 2. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=raJRe7J5m6g https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=raJRe7J5m6g
- Thorrez 2y agoCalifornia seems fine with apostrophes in street names: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.3902898,-121.9777759,3a,41.6y,20.52h,90.11t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s89o6dzYTh309erujsnXcug!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?coh=205409&entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/@37.3902898,-121.9777759,3a,41.6...
- stubish 2y agoThe BS 7666 is just a rationalization. There is a definition of CharacterString to be alphanumeric, which would be silly to use strictly since that would also forbid white space and hyphens. Later in the spec there is a specific example containing an apostrophe. "Abbreviations and punctuation should not be used unless they appear in the designated name (e.g. ‘Earl’s Court Road’). Only single spaces should be used, and the use of leading spaces should be avoided." So some system the council deals with can't cope, and they are trying to rationalize not fixing it.
- rawling 2y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40262883 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40262883 221 comments, 7 days ago
- roydivision 2y agoFfs. Why don't we just make all street names binary numbers, computers handle those really well.