Considering that "surface" is loosely defined (it can have any value) and no rules are imposed on it, I believe that ground and dirt are acceptable values, but not quite desirable, as their meaning is too low quality (too imprecise) for applications such as routing and even rendering of detailed surface maps. They both hardly mean something significantly different from "unpaved" (for most practical applications I can think of).
I think it hardly takes 1 extra second per way to arrive at a description using some more specific widely accepted terminology such as gravel, sand, earth, etc. which is much more useful. The only good reason to encourage the use of a generic description is when you are importing data and you are limited by the quality of the data source. On Fri, Mar 14, 2014 at 2:21 PM, Philip Barnes <p...@trigpoint.me.uk> wrote: > On Fri, 2014-03-14 at 22:44 +0900, John Willis wrote: >> Since OSM uses British English, what word would you pair with road, as in >> "dirt road?" >> >> Earthen road? >> >> Inquiring minds want to know. > > There is no usage of dirt road in the UK most, if not all, public roads > are hard surfaced (although the quality can vary). > > I have certainly never heard the term Earthen Road, it is probably one > of those instances where we should adopt the American Dirt, like we use > sidewalk. Most Brits will be familiar the term from movies. I have > driven on dirt roads in Canada, we have nothing like that. > > Phil (trigpoint) > >> >> J >> >> Sent from my iPad >> >> > On Mar 14, 2014, at 10:18 PM, John Sturdy <jcg.stu...@gmail.com> wrote: >> > >> >> On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 3:09 PM, ael <law_ence....@ntlworld.com> wrote: >> >>> On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 09:34:24AM +0000, jonathan wrote: >> >>> Here's my take from an Englishman! >> >>> >> >>> While the term dirt road is used here, it is much rarer as all >> >> >> >> From another English person, I would say that "dirt" in British English >> >> is understood to mean the substance which causes something to be "not >> >> clean". That is it is much wider in meaning than soil or earth. But it >> >> is almost never used to mean soil or earth under your feet, although >> >> that might be described as "dirty" or even "dirt" if telling a child to >> >> avoid rolling in it. >> > >> > Agreed --- I think of "dirt" in this sense as the American English >> > equivalent of what in British English is usually called "earth" or >> > "soil". >> > >> > __John (native British English speaker) >> > >> > _______________________________________________ >> > Tagging mailing list >> > Tagging@openstreetmap.org >> > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Tagging mailing list >> Tagging@openstreetmap.org >> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging > > > > _______________________________________________ > Tagging mailing list > Tagging@openstreetmap.org > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging -- Fernando Trebien +55 (51) 9962-5409 "The speed of computer chips doubles every 18 months." (Moore's law) "The speed of software halves every 18 months." (Gates' law) _______________________________________________ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
