[Talk-us] Mass Pike naming convention

[Mike Thompson]

On Tue, Jul 5, 2022 at 2:53 PM Brian M. Sperlongano <zelonewolf at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
>
> My read of group consensus is that we have
>>
>>   - 4 in favor of using the official name
>>   - 1 in favor of using the shortened version
>>   - wiki and precedent is very strong in "don't abbreviate" (and I
>>     realize you are saying it isn't an abbreviation)
>>
>
> That tally-up doesn't include the parallel discussion [1] in
> #local-massachusetts on Slack.  Don't worry, there's a screenshot below so
> you don't have to log into Slack to see it.  With that and by my count, you
> have three people that have lived in Massachusetts at some point in their
> lives (myself included) understanding Mass Pike as the on-the-ground name,
> one opposed, and three folks from out of state who understand it as an
> abbreviation.
>
I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the views put forth by those of us who
have not resided in Massachusetts.  While we need to respect local
communities, we should also strive (even if sometimes in vain) for some
consistency, and this decision - regardless of what that is - will be used
as precedent for future decisions which might be closer to home for those
of us not residing in Massachusetts.


>
> Now, if "Mass Pike" is an abbreviation that's just pervasively common,
> then of course I have no leg to stand on here.  If it's entrenched to the
> point of being a common name and not an abbreviation (my contention), then
> it's consistent with the state and country naming examples above.  "Pike"
> isn't even the abbreviation for "Turnpike".  Per the FHWA, Turnpike is
> abbreviated "Trnpk" [2].  If this road were being abbreviated, it would be
> "MA Trnpk" or "Mass. Trnpk" or "Massachusetts Trnpk".
>
To my knowledge, in the English language, there isn't any one official way
of abbreviating a given word.  The US Postal Service has standardized on
two letter state abbreviations, but in another context if one chooses to
use a different abbreviation, such as "Mass" I don't think it would be
considered wrong[0].  Also "Mass Pike" is a lot easier to pronounce than
"MA Trnpk", and "Mass" was the traditional abbreviation for
Massachusetts[1] before the USPS standardized on two letter state
abbreviations sometime in the 1970's. Incidentally, saving printed space is
only one of the reasons for using abbreviations, they are also used for
quick and easy pronunciation.

>
>
> In my opinion, in the absence of a single on-the-ground example of the
> fully-spelled-out name, at least that I've been able to find, I think it's
> a hard sell to call this a simple abbreviation.  A contemporary example of
> "Massachusetts Turnpike" signed on the ground would go a long way to
> satisfy my complaint.
>
It's not a sign on the ground, but Wikipedia has an entry for
"Massachusetts Turnpike" [3], but not for "Mass Pike" (searching for
"MasspIke" or "Mass Pike" redirects to "Massachusetts Turnpike.").  The
article states that "Mass Pike" is used "colloquially"



> Without that, it looks stupid on the map
>
Don't tag for the renderer. Submit a pull request for the style/app in
question to look at other name related tags.


Mike

[0] The Wikipedia page for U.S. postal abbreviations (
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._postal_abbreviations) states that
"in other contexts, such as newspaper articles, the traditional
abbreviations for the states are used."
[1]
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_traditional_abbreviation
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_Turnpike

>
>
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