Restructure wiki page key:name?

General talk
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105

That only referred to one participant in the discussion. The discussion is over when the contributions dry up.

Background:

There is nothing further from my mind than wanting to dictate something to the English-speaking community. I struggle with English because I care about the other language regions. The English wiki is often an important reference for translations from the local communities.

The translation from English “name” into my native language produces a blurred term that does not correspond well to the usage in OSM. I suspect that there will be a similar problem in many languages.

In order to understand what the English-language wiki understands by name, the current article key:name was of little help to me, on the contrary, it rather increased my confusion. Only the main article “names” gave me a clearer picture.

My ambition was to put this picture into precise words that are also less susceptible to shifts in meaning in translations. But which words are these? My approach was to use the vocabulary of lexicons:

Oxford English Dictionary:
proper name, n.
A name, consisting of a proper noun or noun phrase including a proper noun, that designates an individual person, place, organization,

Merriam-Webster :
a noun (such as Seattle, Joyce, or Empire State Building) that designates a particular being or thing, does not take a limiting modifier, and is usually capitalized in English → called also proper name.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language :
A noun belonging to the class of words used as names for unique individuals, events, or places. Also called proper name.

I was happy, the definition of the term “proper name” matched the main article exactly and a dictionary is a reliable anchor for translators.

In the course of this discussion it became clear that the term “proper name” is rather uncommon. What I can’t tell, and here I’m asking for support from the English-speaking community: the term “proper name”

  • may be a little strange, but you can easily live with it. The advantage of reliable international translatability outweighs the disadvantages
  • is annoying, the wording should be changed if possible

What do you think?

In my region, too, descriptions and generic names (less frequently) in the name key are the most common problems.

In the current article key:name and also in the proposal, primary is used in the context of “the most common” or the “most prominent signposted” name. I imagine it would be very difficult to differentiate further. The “Road” section is a example of this.

One goal is to " focus on the essentials". I didn’t see any essential information in this section. Did I miss something?

106

Too bad. I was hoping someone would come up with a solution to replace several old solutions, so we could end up with one more solution besides the old ones. Classic, I know, but still going strong.
Now all we can do is describe current usage.

107

I’m a native English speaker and I don’t remember hearing or reading the term “proper name” before reading this thread. Apparently it means basically the same thing as “proper noun” (a term I’m quite familiar with) which basically means “name”. So it seems the “proper” in “proper name” is redundant and irrelevant. Perhaps I’ve missed some nuance here though.

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108

The Oxford definition is for the obscure philosophical concept “proper name”. As with any term in philosophy, the meaning is far more nuanced than a dictionary definition lets on. You’ve simplified and bended it for the purpose of this key. OSM does that sometimes, but it’s the cause of many later tagging disagreements.

To reiterate, the more well-known grammatical concept is called “proper noun” or, informally, “proper name”. The latter was what one of my older elementary school teachers insisted on calling it… like fingernails scratching a chalkboard. Merriam-Webster and the AHD are alluding to this dated usage, though not as a preferred term.

Translation is definitely a consideration. In many languages, proper nouns are the nouns that are always capitalized. Maybe identifying proper nouns is more complex in German, where every noun is capitalized, so you don’t have as much intuition to rely on. In the Romance languages, meanwhile, “noun” and “name” are the same word, so distinguishing between “proper noun” and (philosophical) “proper name” would be even more complicated.

That said, proper noun would actually be a great basis for succinctly defining the key, and I’m embarrassed I hadn’t put that in the article before. A name is a kind of proper noun; a description is not. Proper nouns can go in other keys besides name=*, such as brand=* and operator=*, but a name is the proper noun that something is called by, and a name=* is the usual name. Simple as that. If you want to base the definition on proper nouns, toss out all the stuff about uniqueness, because it will be more confusing than helpful, as mappers are always very adept at finding edge cases.

Sure, focus is good, but don’t “throw the baby out with the bathwater”. An article can offer more than the essentials, after it has fulfilled its primary purpose of defining the concept. Many of our tag description pages provide information for mappers upfront, followed by information for software developers or mappers who want to understand how software interprets the tag. No one has to read the entire article from start to finish; that’s what headings are for.

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109

Not sure this is intended: While German language capitalizes all nouns, the concept of proper noun is known, we call it Eigenname, Latin term in grammar books is nomen proprium.

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Yes, and in all these languages, the concept from philosophy is not the one that the grammar books refer to. And at least some of the philosophers hold that a description is a “proper name”, as long as it’s unambiguous. :woozy_face: What we’re left with is a proposal that would mean the same thing, minus a lot of potential confusion, if the word “proper” were replaced with the empty string.

111

I think the problem here is you’re using the term “proper name” as though it’s self-evident, as though something’s “proper name” is so obvious that it doesn’t require any further explanation. As you’ve now seen from the significant pushback from people in this thread: it’s not self-evident. It is still entirely up to one’s interpretation.

As Minh has been explaining, it’s actually a significantly more philosophical concept than I think you ever thought it was. You’ve essentially been making the argument “the name=* key should be used only for the names of things”—which is on the face of it patently obvious—but you turned around, made an argument that went contrary to the grammatical sense of “proper name” and wrote:

This could not have been more incorrect. A brand name by its very nature, by definition, is a “proper name”. When you made the argument “You can’t name a Burger King restaurant ‘Burger King’, because that’s not its proper name,” you had strong opposition from many others including myself because to us that’s blatantly false.

I think what you were trying to argue was that e.g. every Burger King restaurant should have a unique name; that the name of the chain or ‘brand’ is not sufficient enough to be a “proper name” because it’s a name that is shared by every other restaurant in the chain, thus it cannot by definition be a “proper name” because “proper names” are unique. To me that’s akin to arguing that there can only be one man named ‘Dave’ in the UK. Like gileri with respect to my question about the names of McDonald’s restaurant, you ignored my comment asking “What is the name of the Burger King around the corner from you then? (If not simply ‘Burger King’?)”

I think where you were going with it, like the issue you raised with “Tesla Superchargers”, is that you think each one should be tagged with its own entirely unique name, or shouldn’t have one at all. What that entirely unique name would be is a mystery to me, without you venturing into a description, which I was under the impression you were trying to avoid in the first place.

I think, ultimately, what your original point was trying to be was simply that the name=* key should use proper nouns as opposed to common nouns. E.g. one should never name a tree name=tree, because that’s the common noun of what it is, not the proper noun that is its name. Likewise a Burger King restaurant would be tagged name=Burger King, never name=Burger King restaurant because restaurant is entirely redundant.

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112

Exactly the same for me, a native English speaker from the opposite side of the Atlantic to @ezekielf. I am familiar with proper nouns and common nouns as a grammatical concept, and assumed that proper name referred to the same thing.

Hence my confusion about the apparent linking of the proper name concept to discouraging the use of brand names. Grammatically there is no difference between “I had lunch at NotABrandBurgerJoint” and “I had lunch at Burger King”. Both contrast with “I had lunch at a restaurant” which uses a common noun.

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113

according to an unreliableInformationMashup in the internet, there is a slight difference in the concepts of proper nouns and proper names:

A proper noun is a type of noun that refers to a specific person, place, thing, or entity. Proper nouns are always capitalized, regardless of where they appear in a sentence. Examples of proper nouns include names of people (e.g., John, Mary), names of places (e.g., Paris, New York City), names of organizations (e.g., Microsoft, United Nations), and names of specific things (e.g., Titanic, Eiffel Tower).

A proper name is a specific type of proper noun that is used to identify an individual person, place, or thing uniquely. Proper names are typically given to specific entities by their parents, creators, or other individuals responsible for naming them. Proper names can also refer to titles, brands, and trademarks. For example, “John Smith” is a proper name for a person, “Apple” is a proper name for a company, and “Mount Everest” is a proper name for a mountain.

In summary, all proper names are proper nouns, but not all proper nouns are proper names. Proper names are a subset of proper nouns that uniquely identify specific entities.

So for OSM the situation seems we use proper nouns in “name” (e.g. using name=Burger King, Walmart, Ford would not be considered wrong, but can also sometimes be name= plus brand=any of the aforementioned and more), some of which are proper names.

Cheers,

Martin

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114

This isn’t a consistent definition, is it? Names of people are certainly not unique, and neither are names of companies or mountains (to a lesser degree).

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115

This isn’t a consistent definition, is it? Names of people are certainly not unique, and neither are names of companies or mountains (to a lesser degree).

right, in real life you would probably add a description if there was the risk of confusing people or places, towns sometimes add river names, (to distinguish persons the government also looks at birthday and place, social security numbers and similar, people would maybe use something distinctive for the concrete situation, like the young John Smith, the black haired JS, with the beard, etc. )

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116

John Smith really makes for a bad GUID. I think your take on the subject sums it up quite niceley :slight_smile: This philosophy talk will not ever bring us anywhere. I studied philosophy and what I read here makes me feel ashamed due to how this discipline gets portrayed here.

E.g. Metro is a name. It is not unique when applied to a company, it is not unique when applied to a shop, it is not unique when applied to the Tube. Its still a proper name for any instance of any of that, or what we in Austria call an Eigenname and the Romans called nomen proprium. It is just that in the English language the term proper name got out of fashion and nowadays people prefer to use proper noun – at least that is how i interpret the native speakers contributions here.

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117

Many thanks for the answers. I have understood that the term “proper name” is perceived as annoying in the English-speaking community and should rather be avoided.

In the context of the proposal, “proper name” and “proper noun” were synonymous for me. Swapping the terms therefore does not change the content.

The key messages of the proposal with the wording corresponding to the grammatical concept:

  1. the tag “name” for an object in OSM contains the proper noun of this object in the real world
  2. Proper nouns refer to specific objects (individual names)
  3. Common noun refer to a group of objects (group names)
  4. Descriptive names provide easy identification

I will revise the proposal accordingly. But please be a little patient.

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118

Small nitpick, to say it should contain the “proper noun of an object” doesn’t make sense to me. I would say something like:

The name tag will usually contain a proper noun, such as ‘McDonald’s’, not a common noun, such as ‘toilet’, or a description, such as ‘informal path’.

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119

I very, very strongly suggest avoiding giving these terms OSM-specific definitions. They already have commonly understood definitions. If your rewrite of these wiki articles needs a glossary then frankly you’ve gone astray, in my opinion.

It’s not your use of the term “proper name” that is “annoying”. What’s causing the strife and confusion is that you’re trying to give “proper name”—and now, “proper noun” and “common noun”—a very specific, narrow definition that clashes with the term’s common understanding.

Your proposed definitions fall apart pretty quickly. If a proper noun “refers to specific objects” and common nouns “refer to a group of objects”, what do I name something that consists of a plural? What do I name (e.g.) “The Bahamas”, then, if I’m only supposed to use “individual names”? And if you tell people “descriptive names provide easy identification” it begs the question, “… well then why don’t I do that, if it’s easily understood?”

@osmuser63783 's small example above gets this point across in a very concise way, to me. You see here that they’re giving examples of what proper nouns, common nouns and descriptions are, rather than trying to define (or redefine) them:

The name tag will usually contain a proper noun, such as ‘McDonald’s’, not a common noun, such as ‘toilet’, or a description, such as ‘informal path’.

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120

Not really?

name=Tree on each natural=tree does not provide easy identification, is a descriptive name

name=Lidl does provide easy identification (in a given area), is not a descriptive name

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121

I like this a lot, but IMHO I think it might be clearer if you use one example, so

The name tag will usually contain a proper noun, such as “McDonald’s”, not a common noun, such as “restaurant”, or a description, such as “a fast food restaurant that specializes in hamburgers”

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122

I briefly considered replacing “proper name” with “proper noun” in the proposal, but I quickly backed away from it. The proposal is explicitly aimed at all language communities, so it makes little sense to refer to English grammar.

I’m still thinking about how I can replace “proper name” without losing precision and translatability.

The definition of “proper name” is not mine, but a reproduction of the references I gave in Post #105.

The plural is completely irrelevant. Please refer to the definitions in the proposal. “The Bahamas” is the proper name and also the individual name of a region.

Neither common names nor descriptions are defined in the proposal. These are terms used in everyday language; examples are sufficient here. This does not apply to the “nomen proprium” (en: proper name/noun, de: proper name, fr: nom propre, es: nombre propio). It cannot be assumed that this term is self-explanatory in all language communities. A definition is necessary to understand the context.

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@osmuser63783, @jumbanho: Thanks for the constructive suggestion. I like it very much.

Unfortunately it only works in English-speaking countries. Neither DeepL nor Google Translate can understandably translate this sentence into my native language. DeepL fails because of “proper noun” and “common noun”, Google because of “common noun”.

One would have to use simpler terms, perhaps like this?

The name tag will usually contain a individual name, such as “McDonald’s”, not a generic name such as “restaurant”, or a description, such as “a fast food restaurant that specializes in hamburgers”.

Both DeepL and Google Translate can handle this.

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The fact that machine translation doesn’t do a good job translating the article is not a good reason to change it. Translation is difficult and although the machines often do an admirable job it’s not surprising that some nuance is lost.

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