On Sat, 2012-07-21 at 11:43 -0400, David ``Smith'' wrote: > Just contributing another data point on vocabulary… > > I am a native English speaker from Ohio, USA. I have been aware of > the term "potable" for many years, probably since asking what it meant > after seeing a water source labeled "non-potable". I have seen that > warning on taps in public parks, and on many trucks and railcars. I am a native English speaker from the UK, I have never seen the term potable used in the UK. Labels on taps use the term 'drinking water', or 'not drinking water'. Any council using the word 'potable' is likely to be slammed by the Campaign For Plain English. I only understand potable because I have studied French, and have a good memory. We really should stick to 'Drinking Water', as does real world signage.
> On the other hand, I'd never heard of a "trunk road" before joining > OSM. I still don't know any objective way to tell the difference > between trunk, primary, secondary, tertiary, and unclassified roads, > and I'm amazed there aren't rampant edit wars over those distinctions. > I think it's silly that "unclassified road" is in fact a specific road > classification. I'd never heard of a "weir" before joining OSM, > desptie the existence of several in my home area. > The classifications, certainly Trunk, came from the UK. I do not know of any easy way of identifying a Trunk road. Other than googling my way through various local authority/highways agency websites (which then cannot be used on OSM). Trunk roads are 'Primary A roads, funded by central government. Other primary A roads are funded by local authorities, both have green signs and in the UK are mapped as Trunk roads, as there is rarely anything on the ground to differentiate them. Trunk road is a largely outdated term, in the same way as wireless is when referring to a radio receiver. We map secondary A roads (white signs) as Primary, and B roads as secondary. I don't know where the term tertiary came from, its a word outside of OSM I have only heard in The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy, The Tertiary Phase. But really have no idea what the word means of why it was chosen. You will not find any highway authority referring to roads as Tertiary. My view is that tertiary roads are C roads, but the numbers rarely appear on road signs. I have seen maps showing these, but again they are copyright and unusable on OSM. But there are a lot more than many think, they IMO are the non-M/A/B roads that are gritted in the winter and hence every village will have at least one. But in reality mapping them is a matter of if it feels right. Phil _______________________________________________ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
