[Talk-ca] Saints in street names in Ontario

Thu Apr 4 01:11:17 UTC 2019

Hi all,

I'm responding to the saints discussion I started last month. (Finally - sorry.)

Question: does anyone identify as an Ontario mapper and opposes a
resolution that in Ontario (except where overridden by more local
communities as in Ottawa) we do not expand "St" or "St." to "Saint"?
Sub-question: does anyone identify as a Toronto mapper and opposes a
resolution that in Toronto we got by majority of city signs [1] and we
do not expand "St" or "St." to "Saint" except where indicated by the
Toronto official open data centrelines shapefile?

I have meanwhile checked Toronto's open data and their shapefiles/DBF
files [2] specify values like "St Andrew St" (Kensington Market), "St
Annes Rd" (~Dufferin Grove), "St John's Rd" (Junction, conflicting
with other sources on the apostrophe), and "St Clair Ave E". There is
also a "Street Name Index" [3] which includes a list of abbreviations
which does not feature "Saint" or its varieties and spells all "Saint"
roads like "ST GEORGE ST" and "ST CLAIR AVE E", and has no roads
starting with "SAINT" other than "SAINTFIELD AVE" and "SAINTSBURY SQ".

Martin made the argument that "OSM database should use proper words"
but this seems to me to be an etymology argument. Under my admittedly
not very charitable reading, under this argument we would respect
local spelling differences like Canboro Road vs Canborough Road (name
changes at municipality border), we live with corruptions of Steele's
and St. Clare and so many "Queens" rather than "Queen's", we accept
non-original anglicized spellings for "Etobicoke" or "Spadina" or for
that matter "Ontario", but we do not accept where the name is posted
as "St." and not "Saint". I am open to better explanations.

Tristan wrote to three cities (thank you, much appreciated!) and
states that "Names in Openstreetmap may only be abbreviated if the
expanded version is incorrect.  Where either are acceptable, the Saint
must be used." But the question is exactly whether the expanded
versions are incorrect, and how should we or could we tell. In the
case of St. Clair the local historian source suggests it is not
correct as the street is apparently named after a person named "St.
Clare" who was not a saint.

In a town once ruled by the English I can believe that "St. George
Street" is named after Saint George. But the English propensity to not
pay too much attention to apostrophes causes problems. Is "St. Clarens
Avenue" named after a saint, which one and how would we know? In Galt
in Cambridge there is a street we currently have tagged "St. Andrews
Street" (https://osm.org/way/650563356, signed "St. Andrews St" on
OpenStreetCam) - is that: "Saint Andrews Street", properly "Saint
Andrew's Street", or maybe "St Andrews Street" after the Scottish town
and university which is always spelled "University of St Andrews"? If
we have a "St. Johns" is that a typo, a corruption of Saint John or a
reference to St Johns, London, England?

Should we try to research the history of each name? Seems easier to go
with the names posted on the signs (on the ground verifiability). And
while I've not seen an argument that a posted "Ave" isn't actually
short for "Avenue", we do have counterexamples for "St." now. Should
we have it on a per-city basis, with Toronto as "St."?

Thanks,
--Jarek

[1] we do have signs on one end of the street spelled differently than others...

[2] centrelines
https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/data-research-maps/open-data/open-data-catalogue/locations-and-mapping/#e4ec3384-056f-aa59-70f7-9ad7706f31a3
also addresses https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/data-research-maps/open-data/open-data-catalogue/locations-and-mapping/#f71a13c4-fb51-6116-57b7-1f51a8190585

[3] https://www.toronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/9783-city-wide_index.pdf

On Tue, 19 Mar 2019 at 22:41, Matthew Darwin <matthew at mdarwin.ca> wrote:
>
> In Ottawa, there were (and still are) cases where the signs do not match the "official" name in the City of Ottawa database.  Local mappers will consider the signs as authoritative according to OSM rules (what you see on the ground wins).
>
> When I come across this situation I contact the City of Ottawa and ask.  I had a case where there were 3 different variations on the signs for a single street, none of which the matched the city database. Most times ended up with the case that the sign on the street needing to be changed.  Apparently the folks in the sign shop recognize my name now...
>
> Also I'm waiting for the MTO to update the highway signs to have the correct spelling in a few cases.
>
>
> On 2019-03-19 4:32 p.m., john whelan wrote:
>
> Go back to Ottawa and from the discussion we had there in Ontario it is the municipality that is the authority.
>
> From memory years ago when OSM was mapped by cyclists taking photos of street names what was on the sign post was deemed correct.
>
> Unfortunately locally one street had three different signs that all differed slightly.
>
> Cheerio John
>
> On Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 4:19 PM Tristan Anderson, <andersontristan at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> When in doubt, ask.
>>
>> I posed this question to three Ontario municipalities.  Red Lake has told me either are acceptable, as has Amherstburg.  However, this is the response I got after emailing 311 at toronto.ca
>>
>> Dear Tristan:
>>
>> Street names displayed on signs and outlined in official documents should match the authorized spelling of the road name. For street names beginning with Saint, the abbreviated spelling is correct.
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> John House
>> Supervisor, Land & Property Surveys
>> Engineering Support Services
>> Engineering & Construction Services
>> City of Toronto
>>
>> Names in Openstreetmap may only be abbreviated if the expanded version is incorrect.  Where either are acceptable, the Saint must be used.  In general, an abbreviation in an official document does not imply that the expanded version is incorrect; it may just be used for convenience.  I'm still not 100% convinced that we should be using St even in Toronto (note that John admits to it being an "abbreviated spelling") but I just wanted to throw his response out there.
>>
>> Tristan
>>
>>
>>
>> From: Nate Wessel <bike756 at gmail.com>
>> Sent: March 15, 2019 1:42 PM
>> To: Jarek Piórkowski
>> Cc: talk-ca
>> Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Saints in street names in Ontario
>>
>>
>> Interesting!
>>
>>
>> I didn't mean to imply that etymology should be decisive, but that linking the name to the history of some beatified person would help explain the origin of the 'St'... In this case, seemingly supporting the abbreviation, but also referencing an actual 'saint' or two at the same time.
>>
>>
>> I like Danny's suggestion of the pronunciation tag. That seems like the most elegant solution if anyone knows IPA. I've always wanted to learn it actually but haven't yet had a good enough reason.
>>
>>
>> Nate Wessel
>> Jack of all trades, Master of Geography, PhD candidate in Urban Planning
>> NateWessel.com
>>
>>
>> On 3/15/19 1:18 PM, Jarek Piórkowski wrote:
>>
>> On Fri, 15 Mar 2019 at 13:02, Nate Wessel <bike756 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Don't forget about the various alternative naming tags like alt_name=*, short_name=*, loc_name=*, and also name:etymology=* to make things absolutely clear.
>>
>> Having either spelling in one of these alternatives as appropriate would likely satisfy any dissenters and make both the full and abbreviated name searchable.
>>
>> Certainly, but my message is to suggest that "St. Clair Avenue West"
>> _is_ the full name. We could set up an "expanded name" tag I suppose?
>>
>> Etymology wise, Wikipedia, citing (as far as I can tell) local
>> historians, suggests that St. Clair Avenue is named after Augustine
>> St. Clare, a character in Uncle Tom's Cabin, and the book spells the
>> last name "St. Clare", never expanded to "Saint".
>>
>> In any case, suggesting etymology as being decisive for names seems to
>> me problematic in many ways, especially in Canada where we've
>> adopted/mangled many names and phrases from other languages.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> --Jarek
>>
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