[OSM-talk] name finder: "pubs near Cambridge"

[David Earl]

> > 4. The word 'near'(*) is equivalent to a comma: this is just syntactic
> > sugar, but it reads more naturally in some cases.
>
> Is it possible to add "in" too? Someone organising a night out is
> probably more likely to search for "pubs in Portsmouth" than "pubs near
> Portsmouth".


I thought about that but decided not to because

(a) I have no way of saying something is 'in' somewhere (I wish I did). It's
all proximity. 'pubs in oxford' would yield pubs that aren't actually 'in'
Oxford, just near.

(b) 'in' appears in place names in lower case ('Hampton in Arden'), while
'near' rarely does.

I also thought about the pattern '... within Nkm of ...', e.g. 'pubs within
3km of Oxford' but again rejected that because they are listed in increasing
distance from the target already.