[Talk-ca] Saints in street names in Ontario

[Tristan Anderson]

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