The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure (MOTI) of Canada plans to have the Shashishalhem-English dual language road signs installed along Highway 101 by the end of March. The sign project, with an estimated cost of $80,000, was one of the initiatives identified in the 2018 Foundation Agreement between the shíshálh Nation and the province. The 20 new signs will be placed along a 65-kilometre stretch of the highway between Roberts Creek, at the southern boundary of the shíshálh swiya, and Lang Bay, about mid-way between Saltery Bay and Powell River, at the northern end.

The sign installations are getting underway as the province’s Geographical Names Office begins consultations with local governments and other stakeholders on proposals for official name changes for the communities of Madeira Park and Wilson Creek.

While the US has been naming its storms since the 1950s, the UK only adopted the practice in 2014. Not all storms are given names – only those big enough to cause significant damage. Giving a storm a name also holds the added benefit of making it easier for people to follow the storm’s progress via news updates and social media.

In the UK, the Met Office is responsible for selecting each storm’s name, although they have asked members of the public to make suggestions as well. The 2015 campaign called #NameOurStorms prompted more than 10,000 suggestions in its very first year, providing a diverse list of potential names.

Suggestions are also taken from the Met Office’s Irish counterpart, Met Eireann. This year, they have also teamed up with the Dutch weather organisation, Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) to provide the most eclectic list yet.

Once names have been submitted by the public, the Met Office takes the most popular entries to form a list, with one name beginning with each letter of the alphabet. They then move though the list in alphabetical order, alternating between male and female names as they go – that’s why Ciara was followed by Dennis this year. The Met Office also rejects names which are not “proper names” and these ones have been disregarded on that basis: Apocalypse, Baldrick, Big Boss, Bluetooth, Forkbeard, Gnasher, Hot Brew, Megatron, Noddy, root ripper, Stormageddon, Ssswetcaroline, Vader, Voldermort and branch wobbler.

For nearly 150 years, the Jeffrey asbestos mine in the town east of Montreal was one of the world’s largest – and the biggest employer in town. Over the years, however, as experts learned of the dangers associated with asbestos, the town’s name has become somewhat tarnished. Amid growing frustration from residents, officials have launched a bold plan: renaming the town.

The new effort marks the second time Asbestos has tried to rebrand itself. In 2006 town councillors proposed the idea but received little support. While the current attempt will probably cost nearly $100,000, there is hope the contest will bring attention – and potential investment – to the region.

Some residents have advocated names that pay homage to the region, including City of Three Lakes. Other suggested reaching out to Indigenous groups to guidance on the traditional names for the region. Most, however, have been tongue-in-cheek, including Poumontousse (a portmanteau of “lung” and “cough”), the Hole and Asbestos 2.0.

With the reality that a previously unknown animal virus has started infecting people, the world faces a recurring question: What does one call it?

The pneumonia-causing virus, which is spreading rapidly in China and beyond, is currently being identified as 2019-nCoV, shorthand for a novel or new (i.e. “n”) coronavirus (CoV) that was first detected in 2019. The disease it causes doesn’t yet have a name, either, though Wuhan SARS or Wu Flu are among of the options being thrown around on the internet.

None of these is likely to be the virus’ or the disease’s permanent name. They almost certainly would be unacceptable to the Chinese, and to the World Health Organization, which discourages the use of place names in the naming of diseases. As for the virus, the longer it spreads the less novel it becomes.

So how to name it? And who gets to name it?

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary site is an epicurean and sometimes mercurial presentation of language that tantalizes even the most Draconian and martinet-ish of word lovers. A case in point: The delightful “Eponym Quiz,” which tests your knowledge of many of the words in the previous sentence that are based on the names of people. This article in the Columbia Journalism Review discusses well-known – and more obscure – eponyms. Here’s a sample:

In traditional usage an “eponym” is something that has loaned its name to something else. By extension, in everyday usage and many dictionaries, the “eponym” is also the thing that borrowed the name.

Some eponyms have retained the capitalization of their namesakes, such as “Bakelite” (1909), a trademark for the first synthetic plastic, created by Leo Baekeland. Most have lost their capitalization, though some are recognizable as deriving from names. For example, “béchamel” sauce, named for the Marquis Louis de Béchamel, a steward to Louis XIV of France in the late 17th century. The sauce had probably been brought to France at least a hundred years earlier, but the Marquis got naming rights. (The Oxford English Dictionary says it first appeared in English in 1789 spelled “bishemel.”)

Click through to read more!

Intrepid sleuths at XDA-Developers have uncovered code in the latest Google App, buld 10.93, that may be part of a new feature to improve the apps pronunciation abilties when it comes to proper names. Right now if your name is hard for Google to pronounce, your best option is to find the Nickname settings and enter a more transliteral spelling that forces Google to say it the way you prefer. Quite inelegent.

The new feature gives you the option to “record your own” pronunciation. It is unclear what happens then, once Google has a recording. At best there will be some sort of AI methodology to analyze the way you pronounce the name, then transpose your pronunciation onto the Assistant’s voice. At worst it may just play the recording of you reading your own name, but that seems unlikely.