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Comment by graypegg | Hacker News Reader

As far as I can tell, this isn't an issue with the specific database itself, but the standard they are required to record geographic data in, which the end of the article mentions as "BS 7666".

https://www.agi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/BS7666Guid...

    # Standard data types used in BS 7666
    CharacterString: a sequence of alphanumeric characters
    ...

If I had to guess, alphanumeric is interpreted as [0-9a-z].

The sign printer probably expects this format when printing signs for the government, or worse, has a contract that says the government must provide this standard format for the sign information.

So it's just a government mandated database schema... I don't think that's any better of a reasoning though lol

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The Council is making the same mistake you are:

> How to use these standards > > The UPRN and USRN standards form a machine-readable addition to an address or street record held in a system. When using UPRNs and USRNs you can continue to use existing formats but add a field for these identifiers. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/open-standards-fo...

Better not prod Falkirk council, as otherwise they'd have the issue of Bo'ness vs Borrowstounness to deal with.

Similarly Grangemouth apparently has a Bo'ness Road...

A related issue would be places in England named 'by-the-Sea', e.g. Newbiggin-by-the-Sea.

So the signs shall simply have to match reality.

Don’t forget Westward Ho!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westward_Ho%21

Edit: ironically HN formatting couldn’t handle the exclamation mark either.

Such a strict interpretation would also exclude spaces.

at least over there something would probably "isle of pen" rather than "pen island"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penistone

S'cunt'horpe

You don't want to visit Pen's Island?

FORTUNATELYSPACESAREARELATIVELYNEWINVENTIONASARELOWERCASELETTERSANDPUNCTUATIONINGENERAL

A·L·L·S·T·R·I·N·C·S·M·U·S·T·B·E·C·O·M·P·A·T·I·B·L·E·V·V·I·T·H·R·O·M·A·N·S·T·O·N·E·T·A·B·L·E·T·S

*·M·V·S·T·

G·R·A·T·I·A·S

The actual standard (well, the previous version, BS 7666-1:2006) does contain that wording, but also says:

> Abbreviations and punctuation shall not be used unless they appear in the designated name, e.g. “Dr Newton’s Way”, and only single spaces shall be used.

Given that "alphanumeric" is vague, not defined, and prominently contradicted, I'd say it's quite clear that they can't really blame it on BS 7666.

The council probably have some horrible CSV-infested GIS workflow, and have decided to change reality to avoid the bugs.

Ahhh I was looking for something like that! Good find.

So, even worse than imagined... it's an ambiguous standard blamed for a bad implementation of that standard.

BS in "BS 7666" stands for British Standard and not anything else.

If the standard restricts street names to those certain characters, may be it really is BS.

The '666' portion doesn't inspire confidence either.

We love apostrophes so much we have them on our supermarkets. If they're not there we add them.

e.g. I'm going to Sainbury's

e.g. I'm going to Tesco's

...despite the fact that it's real name is plain old Tesco.

That's because you're not going to Tesco the registered company, you're going to (one of) Tesco's (shops). It's just traditional and logical grammar, not misnaming.

Thank you, I'll remember that next time I pay a visit to Sainbury's's!

I agree it's not consistent, but who ever accused English of being that?!

My point isn't that all business names are treated that way, just that the ones that are the reason is grammatical tradition not (for the most part) people who incorrectly think the shop is called "Tesco's" or whatever.

I agree swores. Your comment did say 'traditional' and my comment was facetious.

There's been an historical transition from small chains owned by individuals (e.g. the Victorian Mr John Sainsbury) to big brands (e.g. Superdrug), hasn't there.

The possessive apostrophe was appropriate for the former but surely less so nowadays. I would guess "Sainsbury's" was a rebrand intended to reflect tradition.

Bleh, I might've realised you were kidding had I gone to Starbucks's this morning

This is not true. We don't apply this "rule" to any other establishment, e.g. people don't say "I'm going to Burger King's" or "I'm going to Costa's".

There's nothing to analyze: "Tesco's" is just wrong. It's not the name of the business.

lol… I am glad for you that you haven’t heard those yet.

people don't say "I'm going to Burger King's" or "I'm going to Costa's"

Oh yes they do!

There's nothing to analyze: "Tesco's" is just wrong.

It’s kind of funny that there are prescriptivists on both sides here, all convinced that they’re right.

In 40 years I have no seen such usage in print

People say it.

You may not be wrong that people do say it, I'm sure people say pretty much anything, across this vast planet. Yet people use double negatives, when meaning the negative too. Doesn't make it right.

I think language is defined by real-world usage, not by the logical structure that we theorise underpins it. If so, double negatives actually are right, or at least they can be, if they successfully communicate meaning.

You're not wrong.

Costa’s I for sure have heard. Burger King’s I agree though.

Interesting observation ! Might it be because Tesco and Costa resemble ordinary names, and therefore easily appear in a possessive form ?

Or it might be about imaginary hierarchy. There could only be one actual duly-anointed king of burgers, but if one were to use the definite article to mark this, saying "I am going to the Burger King's", it would imply firstly that the king of burgers does actually exist, and possibly also secondly that he has but one solitary burger outlet.

A grammatical construction not quite so jarring when used with (say) "Tesco".

Pasting my reply to someone else rather than rewrite the same thinking:

I agree it's not consistent, but who ever accused English of being that?! My point isn't that all business names are treated that way, just that the ones that are the reason is grammatical tradition not (for the most part) people who incorrectly think the shop is called "Tesco's" or whatever.

(But as others have replied to you, it's also more common than just Tesco, definitely including "Costa's" for lots of people.)

Up in the northeastern USA there was a discount retail (department store) chain called Caldor:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caldor

My mom used to buy small appliances and Christmas gifts there -- and she always called it Caldor's.

Clothes, she usually bought at Marshalls -- which hasn't had an apostrophe since 1974.

Fun fact, Lotus (Tesco's Thailand stores) have an erroneous apostrophe: "Lotus's" ...

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Lotus%27...

I say Sainsbury's because the name is exactly that. I don't say Tesco's because the name, as you say, is Tesco. I would guess those who say Tesco's (and maybe Asda's) are just getting confused because of Sainsbury's.

Sounds like this Sainsbury person is responsible for spreading an apostrophe infection to Tesco.

Marks and Spencer are studiously looking the other way, innocent expressions on their faces.

I believe standards are the minimum, not the maximum to implement, don't you think so?!

Why those dare to implement - and explain - standards who cannot comprehend their purpose?....

Standards are just that. You can say that you can standards are the 'minimum, not the maximum', but if the standard says only alphanumeric characters are permitted (and it turns out this isn't a very well written standard, so there's a load of discussion possible on this point), an implementation that allows non-alphanumeric characters is wrong.

As a thought experiment, how far beyond the 'maximum' is acceptable? Latin letters with diacritics? Cyrillic letters? Arabic letters? Chinese logographs? Emojis? Would you expect all systems which are standard-compliant to be able to handle all of the above?

The UK includes Wales and Northern Ireland, both of which have place names that include diacritics. Whether or not Wales and Northern Ireland choose to follow this particular British Standard, I don’t know. Some examples here:

https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/111148/do-any-uk...

Yep, that just emphasises how stupid the standard is. Others have mentioned Westward Ho![0] which is in England and contains a non-alphanumeric character.

For Wales for sure, often there are two versions of the place name, the Welsh, and an English butchering of it (see for example Pont-y-pŵl, which is spelt Pontypool in English), so I suppose it would be the English thing to do to simply pretend the Welsh/Irish spelling doesn't matter, and only use the English spelling (a little tongue-in-cheek from my side, but sadly likely the reality).

However, I suspect that whoever authored the standard was just sloppy and wrote 'alphanumeric' without giving it any careful thought.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westward_Ho!

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