From: Mark Williams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 31 October 2008 07:21:30 GMT
To: Chris Browet <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: OSM-Talk <talk@openstreetmap.org>
Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] I've added some amenity values to "Map
Features" based on tag usage
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Chris Browet wrote:
It's fairly standard usage, you see a doctor at the doctors, a
butcher
runs the butchers. There should really be an apostrophe in
there I
think, ie: the butcher's shop, the doctor's surgery. But
that's not
really how people think of it. Just stick both on and point out
everyone else's bad grammar :-)
Please bear with non-native english speaker. I agree we all use
english
for easyness but those subtleties seem far-fetched.
Let's keep it simple and avoid the
"non-grammatically-correct-possessive-case".
I think the tag value should represent a concept, not be
grammatically
correct.
We might as well use "A124" or whatever. If everybody agrees it
means a
doctor amenity in whatever language, the goal is reached.
Obviously, it's far less mnemonic, though... :-)
- Chris -
<grammar-fascist>
The apostrophe is not correct anyway. It denotes a missed letter, in
this word-position it would be 'doctor is', as opposed to the
non-apostrophe version meaning 'belong to the the doctor' or plural
doctors.
Doctors' is just silly but would be technically correct(ish) for
multiple doctors (plural)
</grammar-fascist>
I hope we all enjoyed that.
Given that the tags are in use, I'm going to pull rank & declare a
special interest ;) - use amenity=doctors.
DrMark
To be even more pedantic...
I was taught that apostrophes should be used in two cases: to
indicate a missing letter and to indicate possession,
so the premises of a doctor would be the "doctor's surgery", while a
group practice would be the "doctors' clinic". If the doctor was at
work you could say "the doctor's at the doctor's". Of course, the
English language wouldn't be half so interesting if he rules were
simple, so there is an exception with "it". Where "it's" means "it
is" but something belonging to it would be "its".
Having said that, I tend to go along with the school of thought that
we would be as well of without any apostrophes so amenity=doctors
seems fine.
elvin ibbotson
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