<!DOCTYPE html><html><head><title></title><style type="text/css">p.MsoNormal,p.MsoNoSpacing{margin:0}</style></head><body><div>On Sun, Dec 18, 2022, at 20:33, W B wrote:<br></div><blockquote type="cite" id="qt" style=""><div name="messageBodySection"><div dir="auto"><div>I'm standing in the worst airline terminal in the world at the moment so I won't be exhaustive, but the short answer is, it doesn't matter. This is a global tagging policy akin to avoiding uppercase names like SAN FRANCISCO or tagging things as motorways even though you and I might call them freeways, expressways, or speedways. The OSM project is first and foremost a database, and so normalization is key to the data being parsed and understood. We don't even abbreviate St. Louis, and the *city charter* abbreviates it. You need a compelling reason *not* to, not the other way around.<br></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>You've read and written a fair amount in this thread and you're really not going to address the St Ives analogy?<br></div><div><br></div><div>St in St Ives is not considered an abbreviation in the United Kingdom. It just happens to be pronounced "saint".<br></div><div><br></div><div>Apparently, NW is not considered an abbreviation in Alberta. It just happens to pronounced "northwest".<br></div><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite" id="qt" style=""><div name="messageBodySection"><div dir="auto"><div> ... I simply invite people to present further reasons why Alberta should be an exception to the name tagging policy ( https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:name#Values ) and if they're truly exceptional and represent community consensus then document it. Again I only spoke up because so far none of the justifications are actually unique so far. <br></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>It doesn't have to be unique, it just has to be one they like. In fact, they don't really have to justify it to anyone, any more than St Ives has to justify why its name is St Ives. It's just what it is.<br></div><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite" id="qt" style=""><div name="messageBodySection"><div dir="auto"><div>If TTS pronounces your streets "one hundred four street ess eee" and you don't like it, it'll be in your power to change.<br></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Yeah, absolutely.<br></div><div><br></div><div>One of the ways to change could be a lookup table that maps "SE" in Alberta to its pronunciation.<br></div><div><br></div><div>Just like map renderers would use a lookup table to render "St. Louis" like people expect them to.<br></div><div><br></div><div>--Jarek<br></div><div><br></div></body></html>