[Talk-us-massachusetts] Need Help with Street Name Conflicts

[Jim Snyder-Grant]

The second link makes clear that street names are the purview of each town,
so there won't be a general rule. It also has more details on the 'no
apostrophes in US recognized place names' guideline, including some of the
lobbied-for exceptions such as Martha's Vineyard.  Related story: Acton
officials recently went through the process of getting an unnamed brook to
have the name Mary's Brook, except that the USGS folks said nope, gotta
lose the apostrophe, so now we have Marys Brook (now in OSM as well). If we
had known that lobbying was possible, maybe we could have kept the
apostrophe, but I'll bet we don't have the same level of clout as Martha's
Vineyard.

Jim Snyder-Grant
18 Half Moon Hill
Acton MA 01720
508 572-2985



On Fri, Apr 5, 2019 at 9:29 PM Greg Troxel <gdt at lexort.com> wrote:

> "Wayne Emerson, Jr. via Talk-us-massachusetts"
> <talk-us-massachusetts at openstreetmap.org> writes:
>
> > Well its just a long term trend I have noticed over the years that
> > most street signs that used to have periods and apostrophes now have
> > them removed. But you can still find a few that still have them. I was
> > just wondering if it was an official state policy of
> > standardization. One example I can cite is in Braintree, the street
> > sign says B.V. French St but the assessors database has B V French
> > St. If it is an official policy it might speed up resolving some of
> > these name conflicts.
>
> If you are local I would be inclined to visit the town clerk, or the
> highway department head, and ask about the change and the law.  It might
> be that name with punctuation is official and the sign vendor won't make
> it that way.
>
> I looked at MGL and was unable to find anything.  But I didn't find the
> requirement to have house numbers posted for the fire department, so I
> don't think my negative search counts for much.
>
> The second link seems promising, if you read everything that's referenced.
>
> https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2014/03/geography-apostrophe.html
>
> https://www.mass.gov/info-details/massachusetts-law-about-roads-and-streets#massachusetts-laws-
>
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