On 04/07/2022 11:33, Ken wrote:
> On Sun, 3 Jul 2022 13:09:24 +0100, "NY" <me@privacy.invalid> wrote:
>
>> "Recliner" <recliner.usenet@gmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:t9rqib$30kh1$2@dont-email.me...
>>> NY <me@privacy.net> wrote:
>>>> On 02/07/2022 21:11, MB wrote:
>>>>> On 02/07/2022 18:34, Arthur Figgis wrote:
>>>>>> I'm not sure you can read too much into capitalisation, as styles have
>>>>>> changed over the years.
>>>>>
>>>>> You tend to find road names were usually not capitalised in the 19th
>>>>> Century, it would high-st. or high-street.
>>>>
>>>> Or else the noun (eg road, street, avenue) was not capitalised:
>>>>
>>>> High street
>>>> Acacia avenue
>>>> Caledonian road
>>>>
>>>> (with or without a hyphen before the road/street/avenue)
>>>>
>>>
>>> That's interesting — I'd always thought that the Victorians capitalised
>>> first letters much more than we do now.
>>
>> They did, but many Victorian and early 20th Century newspaper reports (eg of
>> criminals being tried) seemed to have the house style of "Mr X of 23,
>> Acacia-avenue and Mr Y of 7, Chestnut-lane": with the noun in lower-case,
>> hyphenated onto the end of the descriptive name.
>
> The Sun used this style for a while around 1970.

Was that PM? (Pre-Murdoch)

--
Graeme Wall
This account not read.

Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
>
> One strange bit of emphasis I noted on a train yesterday was a station
> announced as "CAMBRIDGE north", as if to distinguish it from some other
> town's north. "Cambridge NORTH" would perhaps be preferable.
>
> Google maps an innumerable similar errors of emphasis if you run it in
> verbal-instruction mode. eg It might easily say "Exeter by PASS"

I don’t know what it’s like in Wales or Ireland, but in Scotland it has
some most interesting pronunciations of place names. It also sometimes
refers to the road number as, for instance, “Eh-1” but other times “a 123”
- “in 200 yards turn left onto a 123”. Eh?

Sam

--
The entity formerly known as Sam.Wilson@ed.ac.uk
Spit the dummy to reply

In message <t9vfsf$3f75k$1@dont-email.me>, at 19:43:11 on Mon, 4 Jul
2022, Sam Wilson <ukr@dummy.wislons.fastmail.co.uk> remarked:
>Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>> One strange bit of emphasis I noted on a train yesterday was a station
>> announced as "CAMBRIDGE north", as if to distinguish it from some other
>> town's north. "Cambridge NORTH" would perhaps be preferable.
>>
>> Google maps an innumerable similar errors of emphasis if you run it in
>> verbal-instruction mode. eg It might easily say "Exeter by PASS"
>
>I don’t know what it’s like in Wales or Ireland, but in Scotland it has
>some most interesting pronunciations of place names. It also sometimes
>refers to the road number as, for instance, “Eh-1” but other times
>“a 123”
>- “in 200 yards turn left onto a 123”. Eh?

Google Maps, as well as often getting the emphasis on names wrong
"Exeter byPASS" tends to read out road numbers in a way very few
humans would.

eg the A1101 (which has some interesting pub-quiz features anyway
like lowest below sea level and longest 4-digit A-road) comes
out as "Ay One thousand one hundred and one", rather than "Ay
eleven oh-one. The later rendition also providing the extra
information that it's a [grand]daughter of the A11.
--
Roland Perry

On 2022-07-05 06:30:11 +0000, Roland Perry said:

> In message <t9vfsf$3f75k$1@dont-email.me>, at 19:43:11 on Mon, 4 Jul
> 2022, Sam Wilson <ukr@dummy.wislons.fastmail.co.uk> remarked:
>> Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
>>>
>>> One strange bit of emphasis I noted on a train yesterday was a station
>>> announced as "CAMBRIDGE north", as if to distinguish it from some other
>>> town's north. "Cambridge NORTH" would perhaps be preferable.
>>>
>>> Google maps an innumerable similar errors of emphasis if you run it in
>>> verbal-instruction mode. eg It might easily say "Exeter by PASS"
>>
>> I don’t know what it’s like in Wales or Ireland, but in Scotland it has
>> some most interesting pronunciations of place names. It also sometimes
>> refers to the road number as, for instance, “Eh-1” but other times “a 123”
>> - “in 200 yards turn left onto a 123”. Eh?
>
> Google Maps, as well as often getting the emphasis on names wrong
> "Exeter byPASS" tends to read out road numbers in a way very few
> humans would.
>
> eg the A1101 (which has some interesting pub-quiz features anyway
> like lowest below sea level and longest 4-digit A-road) comes
> out as "Ay One thousand one hundred and one", rather than "Ay
> eleven oh-one. The later rendition also providing the extra
> information that it's a [grand]daughter of the A11.

Not long ago I was in Sweden, and driving to the town of Norköpping,
part of the route taking me along "Norköppingweg". In Swedish, the
-köpping suffix for place names is pronounced "shopping" (and actually
means a market town, so I assume the words are related). I was using
apple maps for navigation, and what was odd was in the name of the
town, the voice used the Swedish pronunciation, but for the name of the
street it did an English phonetic reading so on approach to a
roundabout it would say something like "At the roundabout take the
second exit to nor-shopping, along nor-kopping-veg".

Robin

On Mon, 4 Jul 2022 14:56:07 +0100, Graeme Wall
<rail@greywall.demon.co.uk> wrote:

>On 04/07/2022 11:33, Ken wrote:
>> On Sun, 3 Jul 2022 13:09:24 +0100, "NY" <me@privacy.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> "Recliner" <recliner.usenet@gmail.com> wrote in message
>>> news:t9rqib$30kh1$2@dont-email.me...
>>>> NY <me@privacy.net> wrote:
>>>>> On 02/07/2022 21:11, MB wrote:
>>>>>> On 02/07/2022 18:34, Arthur Figgis wrote:
>>>>>>> I'm not sure you can read too much into capitalisation, as styles have
>>>>>>> changed over the years.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> You tend to find road names were usually not capitalised in the 19th
>>>>>> Century, it would high-st. or high-street.
>>>>>
>>>>> Or else the noun (eg road, street, avenue) was not capitalised:
>>>>>
>>>>> High street
>>>>> Acacia avenue
>>>>> Caledonian road
>>>>>
>>>>> (with or without a hyphen before the road/street/avenue)
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> That's interesting — I'd always thought that the Victorians capitalised
>>>> first letters much more than we do now.
>>>
>>> They did, but many Victorian and early 20th Century newspaper reports (eg of
>>> criminals being tried) seemed to have the house style of "Mr X of 23,
>>> Acacia-avenue and Mr Y of 7, Chestnut-lane": with the noun in lower-case,
>>> hyphenated onto the end of the descriptive name.
>>
>> The Sun used this style for a while around 1970.
>
>Was that PM? (Pre-Murdoch)

It was probably about the time of the Murdoch takeover so may have
ceased soon after. I remember the odd styling af addresses as I was a
marker-up in a newsagents shop, a promotion from being a paper boy. I
got to read all the papers and magazines (including the shop's daring
carousel containg educational material that involved unclad women).
I've never forgotten it (the adresses) but it's only recently that I
realised that the usage was archaic.

"Ken" <ken@birchanger.com> wrote in message
news:qft7ch99ck3mc48oeuu3jvtge90bgn69l8@4ax.com...
>>> They did, but many Victorian and early 20th Century newspaper reports
>>> (eg of
>>>> criminals being tried) seemed to have the house style of "Mr X of 23,
>>>> Acacia-avenue and Mr Y of 7, Chestnut-lane": with the noun in
>>>> lower-case,
>>>> hyphenated onto the end of the descriptive name.
>>>
>>> The Sun used this style for a while around 1970.
>>
>>Was that PM? (Pre-Murdoch)
>
> It was probably about the time of the Murdoch takeover so may have
> ceased soon after. I remember the odd styling af addresses as I was a
> marker-up in a newsagents shop, a promotion from being a paper boy. I
> got to read all the papers and magazines (including the shop's daring
> carousel containg educational material that involved unclad women).
> I've never forgotten it (the adresses) but it's only recently that I
> realised that the usage was archaic.

I wonder if some newspapers (especially the Times and the Telegraph) tended
to retain archaic formats after they had passed out of normal usage in the
rest of society. I'm surprised The Sun did this, though.

Examples are: addresses as "High-street" rather than "High Street", and
numerical increase/decrease as "10 pc" rather than "10%". The latter is
almost as if newspaper typefaces didn't have a "%" symbol, or else they
think that people will understand "pc" (not even "per cent") better than
"%". I think the "pc" instead of "%" thing is still the case today.

At least they didn't go to the extent of one of the mainstream electronics
magazines in the 1970s and 80s, and opt for a house style of all acronyms
and initialisms to be written in lower-case letters with a full stop between
every letter: "e.p.r.o.m.", "r.a.m.", "l.a.s.e.r." instead of the much more
common (and far easier to read) EPROM, RAM and LASER (or laser).

NY <me@privacy.invalid> wrote:
> "Ken" <ken@birchanger.com> wrote in message
> news:qft7ch99ck3mc48oeuu3jvtge90bgn69l8@4ax.com...
>>>> They did, but many Victorian and early 20th Century newspaper reports
>>>> (eg of
>>>>> criminals being tried) seemed to have the house style of "Mr X of 23,
>>>>> Acacia-avenue and Mr Y of 7, Chestnut-lane": with the noun in
>>>>> lower-case,
>>>>> hyphenated onto the end of the descriptive name.
>>>>
>>>> The Sun used this style for a while around 1970.
>>>
>>> Was that PM? (Pre-Murdoch)
>>
>> It was probably about the time of the Murdoch takeover so may have
>> ceased soon after. I remember the odd styling af addresses as I was a
>> marker-up in a newsagents shop, a promotion from being a paper boy. I
>> got to read all the papers and magazines (including the shop's daring
>> carousel containg educational material that involved unclad women).
>> I've never forgotten it (the adresses) but it's only recently that I
>> realised that the usage was archaic.
>
> I wonder if some newspapers (especially the Times and the Telegraph) tended
> to retain archaic formats after they had passed out of normal usage in the
> rest of society. I'm surprised The Sun did this, though.
>
> Examples are: addresses as "High-street" rather than "High Street", and
> numerical increase/decrease as "10 pc" rather than "10%". The latter is
> almost as if newspaper typefaces didn't have a "%" symbol, or else they
> think that people will understand "pc" (not even "per cent") better than
> "%". I think the "pc" instead of "%" thing is still the case today.

Yes, that's still the case today. For example, from today's Telegraph:

The euro has dropped to a 20-year low against the dollar as traders scaled
back bets on further interest rate rises amid the growing threat of a
recession in the eurozone.

The common currency sank as much as 1.2pc to $1.0298 – its weakest level
since December 2002.

<https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/07/05/ftse-100-markets-live-news-flight-cancellations-nuclear-power/>

The Times goes further:

A Gallup poll showed that 38 per cent of American adults were “extremely
proud” to be American. Taken with the 27 per cent who said that they were
“very proud,” and the 65 per cent of people who expressed pride in the
nation, in response to a different question, it might be assumed that US
patriotism was in rude health.

<https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/02edf2c8-fba6-11ec-88db-ae1b6b9bdd3e?shareToken=fb349c907a7698d8ec4b748cfe9011e6>

But the Guardian is happy to use the % sign:

The pledge came as the UK’s second biggest supermarket, which also owns the
Argos and Habitat chains, revealed that sales at established stores fell 4%
in the 16 weeks to 25 June compared with the same period a year before and
excluding fuel.

The slide was led by an 11% fall in sales of general merchandise and a 10%
drop in sales of clothing compared to a period last year when Sainsbury’s
benefited from most clothing and non-food stores being closed under
pandemic lockdowns.

<https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jul/05/uk-living-costs-squeeze-sainsburys-prices-low-sales>

The BBC is also happy to use the % sign.

On 05/07/2022 11:17, NY wrote:
> "Ken" <ken@birchanger.com> wrote in message
> news:qft7ch99ck3mc48oeuu3jvtge90bgn69l8@4ax.com...
>>>> They did, but many Victorian and early 20th Century newspaper
>>>> reports (eg of
>>>>> criminals being tried) seemed to have the house style of "Mr X of 23,
>>>>> Acacia-avenue and Mr Y of 7, Chestnut-lane": with the noun in
>>>>> lower-case,
>>>>> hyphenated onto the end of the descriptive name.
>>>>
>>>> The Sun used this style for a while around 1970.
>>>
>>> Was that PM? (Pre-Murdoch)
>>
>> It was probably about the time of the Murdoch takeover so may have
>> ceased soon after. I remember the odd styling af addresses as I was a
>> marker-up in a newsagents shop, a promotion from being a paper boy. I
>> got to read all the papers and magazines (including the shop's daring
>> carousel containg educational material that involved unclad women).
>> I've never forgotten it (the adresses) but it's only recently that I
>> realised that the usage was archaic.
>
> I wonder if some newspapers (especially the Times and the Telegraph)
> tended to retain archaic formats after they had passed out of normal
> usage in the rest of society. I'm surprised The Sun did this, though.
>

The pre-Murdoch Sun was a very staid newspaper.

--
Graeme Wall
This account not read.

In message <ta14d0$3mf7u$2@dont-email.me>, at 10:39:28 on Tue, 5 Jul
2022, Recliner <recliner.usenet@gmail.com> remarked:
>NY <me@privacy.invalid> wrote:
>> "Ken" <ken@birchanger.com> wrote in message
>> news:qft7ch99ck3mc48oeuu3jvtge90bgn69l8@4ax.com...
>>>>> They did, but many Victorian and early 20th Century newspaper reports
>>>>> (eg of
>>>>>> criminals being tried) seemed to have the house style of "Mr X of 23,
>>>>>> Acacia-avenue and Mr Y of 7, Chestnut-lane": with the noun in
>>>>>> lower-case,
>>>>>> hyphenated onto the end of the descriptive name.
>>>>>
>>>>> The Sun used this style for a while around 1970.
>>>>
>>>> Was that PM? (Pre-Murdoch)
>>>
>>> It was probably about the time of the Murdoch takeover so may have
>>> ceased soon after. I remember the odd styling af addresses as I was a
>>> marker-up in a newsagents shop, a promotion from being a paper boy. I
>>> got to read all the papers and magazines (including the shop's daring
>>> carousel containg educational material that involved unclad women).
>>> I've never forgotten it (the adresses) but it's only recently that I
>>> realised that the usage was archaic.
>>
>> I wonder if some newspapers (especially the Times and the Telegraph) tended
>> to retain archaic formats after they had passed out of normal usage in the
>> rest of society. I'm surprised The Sun did this, though.
>>
>> Examples are: addresses as "High-street" rather than "High Street", and
>> numerical increase/decrease as "10 pc" rather than "10%". The latter is
>> almost as if newspaper typefaces didn't have a "%" symbol, or else they
>> think that people will understand "pc" (not even "per cent") better than
>> "%". I think the "pc" instead of "%" thing is still the case today.
>
>Yes, that's still the case today. For example, from today's Telegraph:
>
>The euro has dropped to a 20-year low against the dollar as traders scaled
>back bets on further interest rate rises amid the growing threat of a
>recession in the eurozone.
>
>The common currency sank as much as 1.2pc to $1.0298 – its weakest level
>since December 2002.
>
><https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/07/05/ftse-100-markets-live-n
>ews-flight-cancellations-nuclear-power/>
>
>The Times goes further:
>
>A Gallup poll showed that 38 per cent of American adults were “extremely
>proud” to be American. Taken with the 27 per cent who said that they were
>“very proud,” and the 65 per cent of people who expressed pride in the
>nation, in response to a different question, it might be assumed that US
>patriotism was in rude health.
>
><https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/02edf2c8-fba6-11ec-88db-ae1b6b9bdd3e
>?shareToken=fb349c907a7698d8ec4b748cfe9011e6>
>
>But the Guardian is happy to use the % sign:
>
>The pledge came as the UK’s second biggest supermarket, which also owns the
>Argos and Habitat chains, revealed that sales at established stores fell 4%
>in the 16 weeks to 25 June compared with the same period a year before and
>excluding fuel.
>
>The slide was led by an 11% fall in sales of general merchandise and a 10%
>drop in sales of clothing compared to a period last year when Sainsbury’s
>benefited from most clothing and non-food stores being closed under
>pandemic lockdowns.
>
><https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jul/05/uk-living-costs-squeez
>e-sainsburys-prices-low-sales>
>
>The BBC is also happy to use the % sign.

I just wish they'd all get "percentage" and "percentage points" properly
differentiated. 'Last month inflation rose by 2% from its previous high
of 10%'. So is it now 10.2%, or 12%?
--
Roland Perry

On Tue, 5 Jul 2022 11:46:17 +0100, Graeme Wall
<rail@greywall.demon.co.uk> wrote:

>On 05/07/2022 11:17, NY wrote:
>>
>> I wonder if some newspapers (especially the Times and the Telegraph)
>> tended to retain archaic formats after they had passed out of normal
>> usage in the rest of society. I'm surprised The Sun did this, though.
>>
>
>The pre-Murdoch Sun was a very staid newspaper.

More specifically, The Sun prior to Larry Lamb (Murdoch's first editor
of The Sun) was a very staid newspaper. It was Lamb's editorship,
together with Murdoch's decision to switch from broadsheet to tabloid,
that transformed it from a rather dull, left-leaning middle class
newspaper into a sensationalist, right-leaning organ of the masses.

Mark

In message <iNH9lXgKeBxiFAeF@perry.uk>, at 11:50:50 on Tue, 5 Jul 2022,
Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> remarked:

>I just wish they'd all get "percentage" and "percentage points"
>properly differentiated. 'Last month inflation rose by 2% from its
>previous high of 10%'. So is it now 10.2%, or 12%?

In other news, just been reading a local newspaper report about the
summer-wave of Covid, and I suspect they flip back and forth between
quoting the number of cases per 100k, and the number of cases per
District Council.
--
Roland Perry

On Tue, 5 Jul 2022 12:11:34 +0100, Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:

>In message <iNH9lXgKeBxiFAeF@perry.uk>, at 11:50:50 on Tue, 5 Jul 2022,
>Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> remarked:
>
>>I just wish they'd all get "percentage" and "percentage points"
>>properly differentiated. 'Last month inflation rose by 2% from its
>>previous high of 10%'. So is it now 10.2%, or 12%?
>
>In other news, just been reading a local newspaper report about the
>summer-wave of Covid, and I suspect they flip back and forth between
>quoting the number of cases per 100k, and the number of cases per
>District Council.

The popular measure these days is '1 in N' people in xxx have Covid. Currently, N is 18 in Scotland, 20 in NI, and 30 in
England and Wales.

On Tue, 05 Jul 2022 11:59:01 +0100, Mark Goodge <usenet@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk> wrote:

>On Tue, 5 Jul 2022 11:46:17 +0100, Graeme Wall
><rail@greywall.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>On 05/07/2022 11:17, NY wrote:
>>>
>>> I wonder if some newspapers (especially the Times and the Telegraph)
>>> tended to retain archaic formats after they had passed out of normal
>>> usage in the rest of society. I'm surprised The Sun did this, though.
>>>
>>
>>The pre-Murdoch Sun was a very staid newspaper.
>
>More specifically, The Sun prior to Larry Lamb (Murdoch's first editor
>of The Sun) was a very staid newspaper. It was Lamb's editorship,
>together with Murdoch's decision to switch from broadsheet to tabloid,
>that transformed it from a rather dull, left-leaning middle class
>newspaper into a sensationalist, right-leaning organ of the masses.

Yes, I hadn't realised that its predecessor, the Daily Herald, started out as a Trade Union-owned newspaper.

"Mark Goodge" <usenet@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk> wrote in message
news:ru58ch1591t05aq55hpopmkaeeniv4o6r7@4ax.com...
> newspaper into a sensationalist, right-leaning organ of the masses.

Be careful where you lean your organ. You could have somebody's eye out. ;-)

On Tue, 5 Jul 2022 13:31:20 +0100, "NY" <me@privacy.invalid> wrote:

>"Mark Goodge" <usenet@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:ru58ch1591t05aq55hpopmkaeeniv4o6r7@4ax.com...
>> newspaper into a sensationalist, right-leaning organ of the masses.
>
>Be careful where you lean your organ. You could have somebody's eye out. ;-)

<guffaw> My keyboard again agreed it likes an occasional coffee...

On 05/07/2022 11:17, NY wrote:

> I wonder if some newspapers (especially the Times and the Telegraph)
> tended to retain archaic formats after they had passed out of normal
> usage in the rest of society.

Isn't something archaic which has passed out of normal usage basically a
description of the Telegraph's audience?

--
Arthur Figgis

On Tue, 05 Jul 2022 12:46:48 +0100, Recliner
<recliner.usenet@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Tue, 05 Jul 2022 11:59:01 +0100, Mark Goodge <usenet@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>On Tue, 5 Jul 2022 11:46:17 +0100, Graeme Wall
>><rail@greywall.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>>On 05/07/2022 11:17, NY wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I wonder if some newspapers (especially the Times and the Telegraph)
>>>> tended to retain archaic formats after they had passed out of normal
>>>> usage in the rest of society. I'm surprised The Sun did this, though.
>>>>
>>>
>>>The pre-Murdoch Sun was a very staid newspaper.
>>
>>More specifically, The Sun prior to Larry Lamb (Murdoch's first editor
>>of The Sun) was a very staid newspaper. It was Lamb's editorship,
>>together with Murdoch's decision to switch from broadsheet to tabloid,
>>that transformed it from a rather dull, left-leaning middle class
>>newspaper into a sensationalist, right-leaning organ of the masses.
>
>Yes, I hadn't realised that its predecessor, the Daily Herald, started
>out as a Trade Union-owned newspaper.

And, oddly enough, it was the print unions who leaned on IPC (the
former owner) to sell to Murdoch rather than Robert Maxwell. Of
course, given what later transpired with Maxwell it could be argued
that the unions made the right call and ensured that The Sun dodged a
bullet there. But, on the other hand, the titles Maxwell did purchase
stayed on the left of politics, while The Sun migrated across the
floor to the right.

Mark

On 05/07/2022 18:18, Arthur Figgis wrote:
> On 05/07/2022 11:17, NY wrote:
>
>> I wonder if some newspapers (especially the Times and the Telegraph)
>> tended to retain archaic formats after they had passed out of normal
>> usage in the rest of society.
>
> Isn't something archaic which has passed out of normal usage basically a
> description of the Telegraph's audience?
>

:-)

--
Graeme Wall
This account not read.

On 05/07/2022 07:30, Roland Perry wrote:
> In message <t9vfsf$3f75k$1@dont-email.me>, at 19:43:11 on Mon, 4 Jul
> 2022, Sam Wilson <ukr@dummy.wislons.fastmail.co.uk> remarked:
>> Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
>>>
>>> One strange bit of emphasis I noted on a train yesterday was a station
>>> announced as "CAMBRIDGE north", as if to distinguish it from some other
>>> town's north. "Cambridge NORTH" would perhaps be preferable.
>>>
>>> Google maps an innumerable similar errors of emphasis if you run it in
>>> verbal-instruction mode. eg It might easily say "Exeter by PASS"
>>
>> I don’t know what it’s like in Wales or Ireland, but in Scotland it has
>> some most interesting pronunciations of place names.  It also sometimes
>> refers to the road number as, for instance, “Eh-1” but other times “a
>> 123”
>> - “in 200 yards turn left onto a 123”.  Eh?
>
> Google Maps, as well as often getting the emphasis on names wrong
> "Exeter byPASS" tends to read out road numbers in a way very few
> humans would.
>
> eg the A1101 (which has some interesting pub-quiz features anyway
>    like lowest below sea level and longest 4-digit A-road) comes
>    out as "Ay One thousand one hundred and one", rather than "Ay
>    eleven oh-one. The later rendition also providing the extra
>    information that it's a [grand]daughter of the A11.

Or it should be "Ay one, one-oh-one" as the [great grand] daughter of
the A1 ....

--
Colin

On 05/07/2022 18:18, Arthur Figgis wrote:
> On 05/07/2022 11:17, NY wrote:
>
>> I wonder if some newspapers (especially the Times and the Telegraph)
>> tended to retain archaic formats after they had passed out of normal
>> usage in the rest of society.
>
> Isn't something archaic which has passed out of normal usage basically a
> description of the Telegraph's audience?
>
>
>

My father used to read the Telegraph so ... oh, wait a minute, you have
a point!!

--
Colin

In message <ta3ou5$rf3$1@dont-email.me>, at 11:42:14 on Wed, 6 Jul 2022,
ColinR <rail@greystane.shetland.co.uk> remarked:
>On 05/07/2022 07:30, Roland Perry wrote:
>> In message <t9vfsf$3f75k$1@dont-email.me>, at 19:43:11 on Mon, 4 Jul
>>2022, Sam Wilson <ukr@dummy.wislons.fastmail.co.uk> remarked:
>>> Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> One strange bit of emphasis I noted on a train yesterday was a station
>>>> announced as "CAMBRIDGE north", as if to distinguish it from some other
>>>> town's north. "Cambridge NORTH" would perhaps be preferable.
>>>>
>>>> Google maps an innumerable similar errors of emphasis if you run it in
>>>> verbal-instruction mode. eg It might easily say "Exeter by PASS"
>>>
>>> I don’t know what it’s like in Wales or Ireland, but in Scotland it has
>>> some most interesting pronunciations of place names.  It also sometimes
>>> refers to the road number as, for instance, “Eh-1” but other
>>>times “a 123”
>>> - “in 200 yards turn left onto a 123”.  Eh?

>> Google Maps, as well as often getting the emphasis on names wrong
>>"Exeter byPASS" tends to read out road numbers in a way very few
>> humans would.

>> eg the A1101 (which has some interesting pub-quiz features anyway
>>    like lowest below sea level and longest 4-digit A-road) comes
>>    out as "Ay One thousand one hundred and one", rather than "Ay
>>    eleven oh-one. The later rendition also providing the extra
>>    information that it's a [grand]daughter of the A11.
>
>Or it should be "Ay one, one-oh-one" as the [great grand] daughter of
>the A1 ....

That could be true, but very much less useful (nor something I've heard
people say), as we have radial trunk (and de-trunked) roads clockwise
the A10, A11, A12 and A13, which gives a more precise location.
--
Roland Perry

On Wed, 6 Jul 2022 11:42:14 +0100, ColinR
<rail@greystane.shetland.co.uk> wrote:

>On 05/07/2022 07:30, Roland Perry wrote:

>> eg the A1101 (which has some interesting pub-quiz features anyway
>>    like lowest below sea level and longest 4-digit A-road) comes
>>    out as "Ay One thousand one hundred and one", rather than "Ay
>>    eleven oh-one. The later rendition also providing the extra
>>    information that it's a [grand]daughter of the A11.
>
>Or it should be "Ay one, one-oh-one" as the [great grand] daughter of
>the A1 ....

The way we say it doesn't really have any relationship to the
hierarchy. It's just one of the quirks of spoken English.

When a number is used as a string (eg, a road name or telephone
number), rather than an integer, we typically split it into convenient
substrings and then vocalise those individually rather than enunciate
the entire string as if it was an integer value. But even then, we're
not entirely consistent.

With road numbers, we typically say anything up to 100 as an interger.
So, for example:

A6 is A six
M45 is M forty-five
A100 is A one-hundred

but:

A101 is A one-oh-one
B4084 is B four-oh-eight-four

but there's a further inconsistency in that if the first digit is 1
and the second is greater than 0, we generally group them together:

A1101 is A eleven-oh-one
B1123 is B eleven-twenty-three
B1502 is B fifteen-oh-two

although:

B1016 is B one-oh-one-six

This irregular parsing of road numbers is something that most drivers
get used to after a while, and we generally do it instinctively
without thinking about it (although we may sometimes come a bit
unstuck with a four-digit number that some peple split into four
single digits and others split into two two-digit numbers). But it's
incredibly difficult, without actually storing the pronunciation as
part of the data, to do that programatically.

The only reliable way to do it for something like a sat-nav is to get
your voice artist, as well as recording themselves speaking digits and
multipliers, to record themselves saying the number of every road. But
that doesn't scale for software which has to work internationally.

Mark

On 06/07/2022 12:28, Roland Perry wrote:
> In message <ta3ou5$rf3$1@dont-email.me>, at 11:42:14 on Wed, 6 Jul 2022,
> ColinR <rail@greystane.shetland.co.uk> remarked:
>> On 05/07/2022 07:30, Roland Perry wrote:
>>> In message <t9vfsf$3f75k$1@dont-email.me>, at 19:43:11 on Mon, 4 Jul
>>> 2022, Sam Wilson <ukr@dummy.wislons.fastmail.co.uk> remarked:
>>>> Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> One strange bit of emphasis I noted on a train yesterday was a station
>>>>> announced as "CAMBRIDGE north", as if to distinguish it from some
>>>>> other
>>>>> town's north. "Cambridge NORTH" would perhaps be preferable.
>>>>>
>>>>> Google maps an innumerable similar errors of emphasis if you run it in
>>>>> verbal-instruction mode. eg It might easily say "Exeter by PASS"
>>>>
>>>> I don’t know what it’s like in Wales or Ireland, but in Scotland it has
>>>> some most interesting pronunciations of place names.  It also sometimes
>>>> refers to the road number as, for instance, “Eh-1” but other times
>>>> “a  123”
>>>> - “in 200 yards turn left onto a 123”.  Eh?
>
>>>  Google Maps, as well as often getting the emphasis on names wrong
>>> "Exeter byPASS" tends to read out road numbers in a way very few
>>> humans would.
>
>>>  eg the A1101 (which has some interesting pub-quiz features anyway
>>>     like lowest below sea level and longest 4-digit A-road) comes
>>>     out as "Ay One thousand one hundred and one", rather than "Ay
>>>     eleven oh-one. The later rendition also providing the extra
>>>     information that it's a [grand]daughter of the A11.
>>
>> Or it should be "Ay one, one-oh-one" as the [great grand] daughter of
>> the A1 ....
>
> That could be true, but very much less useful (nor something I've heard
> people say), as we have radial trunk (and de-trunked) roads clockwise
> the A10, A11, A12 and A13, which gives a more precise location.

But that is a sub-set to the A1, A2, A3 etc radial trunk routes.

--
Colin

On 6 Jul 2022 at 3:52:47 PM EEST, "Mark Goodge"
<usenet@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk> wrote:
> This irregular parsing of road numbers is something that most drivers
> get used to after a while, and we generally do it instinctively
> without thinking about it (although we may sometimes come a bit
> unstuck with a four-digit number that some peple split into four
> single digits and others split into two two-digit numbers). But it's
> incredibly difficult, without actually storing the pronunciation as
> part of the data, to do that programatically.
>
> The only reliable way to do it for something like a sat-nav is to get
> your voice artist, as well as recording themselves speaking digits and
> multipliers, to record themselves saying the number of every road. But
> that doesn't scale for software which has to work internationally.

Indeed, custom-and-practice is different in different languages (and indeed
one wouldn't be surprised if it was different in different countries with the
same language.)

Here in RO my bus to work is "trei sute optzeci si unu" (three hundred and
eighty one), not trei-opt-unu. And if tomorrow morning I catch the train to
Galati from GdN, I would listen out for the announcement for "Trenul
Inter-Regio douasprezece mii cinci sute saptecezi si unu" (Inter Regio twelve
thousand, five hundred and seventy one) not IR-one-two-five-seven-one.

The English versions of the announcements - I'm fairly sure I'm correct in
recalling, without being quite 100% - follow the Romanian convention but in
English words; i.e. the English announcement will be for "Inter Regio twelve
thousand five hundred and seventy one".

Things like your national identification number (13 digits) or phone number
are vocalised digit-by-digit though, so clearly there is a limit... I've never
actually asked officially where the dividing line falls, but my gut is telling
me "more than thousands". I guess it's something you pick up naturally without
thinking about...

In message <ta417u$1lmp$1@dont-email.me>, at 14:04:00 on Wed, 6 Jul
2022, ColinR <rail@greystane.shetland.co.uk> remarked:
>On 06/07/2022 12:28, Roland Perry wrote:
>> In message <ta3ou5$rf3$1@dont-email.me>, at 11:42:14 on Wed, 6 Jul
>>2022, ColinR <rail@greystane.shetland.co.uk> remarked:
>>> On 05/07/2022 07:30, Roland Perry wrote:
>>>> In message <t9vfsf$3f75k$1@dont-email.me>, at 19:43:11 on Mon, 4
>>>>Jul 2022, Sam Wilson <ukr@dummy.wislons.fastmail.co.uk> remarked:
>>>>> Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> One strange bit of emphasis I noted on a train yesterday was a station
>>>>>> announced as "CAMBRIDGE north", as if to distinguish it from some
>>>>>>other
>>>>>> town's north. "Cambridge NORTH" would perhaps be preferable.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Google maps an innumerable similar errors of emphasis if you run it in
>>>>>> verbal-instruction mode. eg It might easily say "Exeter by PASS"
>>>>>
>>>>> I don’t know what it’s like in Wales or Ireland, but in
>>>>>Scotland it has
>>>>> some most interesting pronunciations of place names.  It also sometimes
>>>>> refers to the road number as, for instance, “Eh-1” but other
>>>>>times “a  123”
>>>>> - “in 200 yards turn left onto a 123”.  Eh?
>>
>>>>  Google Maps, as well as often getting the emphasis on names wrong
>>>>"Exeter byPASS" tends to read out road numbers in a way very few
>>>> humans would.
>>
>>>>  eg the A1101 (which has some interesting pub-quiz features anyway
>>>>     like lowest below sea level and longest 4-digit A-road) comes
>>>>     out as "Ay One thousand one hundred and one", rather than "Ay
>>>>     eleven oh-one. The later rendition also providing the extra
>>>>     information that it's a [grand]daughter of the A11.
>>>
>>> Or it should be "Ay one, one-oh-one" as the [great grand] daughter
>>>of the A1 ....

>> That could be true, but very much less useful (nor something I've
>>heard people say), as we have radial trunk (and de-trunked) roads
>>clockwise the A10, A11, A12 and A13, which gives a more precise location.
>
>But that is a sub-set to the A1, A2, A3 etc radial trunk routes.

Yes, but with significantly less precise of a hint where it might be.
--
Roland Perry