The language of place names creates a striking snapshot of New Zealand’s history. A new map, created by researchers at Te Punaha Matatini (a centre of research hosted by the University of Auckland) as well as Dragonfly Data Science, shows how Maori and English names are distributed on the North and South islands. The interactive map on the NZ Herald website is coloured based on whether the place name contains Māori or English. 

Kaitaia’s Te Hiku Media is running a project that aims to teach computers to speak and understand Te Reo Māori. They are developing tools to understand both written and spoken Te Reo. The development of an acoustic model for Te Reo Māori is being crowd-sourced. To build a reference of spoken Te Reo Te Hiku Media is asking Māori speakers use the website koreromaori.com record themselves reading as little as ten sentences a day for a month.

This website presents the project “Onymic Border Marking: The Self-Designation of Transgender People in Germany”. In this project, they examine the self-categorization of people from an onomastic (i,e., naming) perspective. The subject is the name choice and self-naming of trans people in the course of their gender change. The central issue is the extent to which names can be used to construct and visualize gender identity.

Read the detailed project presentation , find out about the employees or write to them.

Note: the website is in German.

Famous chefs often use their names as the names of their restaurants – but, like fashion designers, those chefs can lose control of that name in court. That’s what happened to Alon Shaya, who, with partner John Besh, started opened several restaurants in New Orleans, including one called Shaya. But since his split with Besh, Shaya has been embroiled in a legal battle with his former partner, and a court has ruled that the restaurant doesn’t have to change its name.

This article at Eater takes a look at this phenomenon. Here’s a sample:

The reality is that chefs and owners want to use the reputation and recognition of a chef’s name and brand to lure in customers. If that’s the case, the best way for a chef to protect herself is with a series of well-written, well-vetted legal documents — an operating agreement that gives her either a controlling interest or controlling vote in the operating company, and/or a very good license agreement.

In this fascinating essay at Life & Thyme, Katie Bell writes about the importance of language in the professional kitchens of restaurants. She points out that the special terms and names used between chefs and staff serve multiple purposes – building camaraderie, to reinforce philosophy, to teach, and for so much more. Here’s a small sample:

For the majority of us, picking up that language is a rite of passage. On my first job as a host in a nice restaurant in Colorado, I entered the kitchen to a host of words I knew, but in a context that made no sense. I had so many questions. What is this four top? Why do they keep saying deuce? Who is taking a turn? What is this girl calling a double seating? Why does this guy keep screaming corner every time I walk around one? Why is that cook telling me there are eighty-six chickens? What does it all mean, and why is everyone getting so excited about it?

Click on over to read the rest of it!

Walmart is introducing low-cost clothing brands for women, kids and plus-size customers. The store brands include Time and Tru in ladies’ wear—which will replace the retired DanskinNow label—along with Terra & Sky in plus-size apparel and Wonder Nation for kids. The George apparel brand, which Walmart brought over from its British unit Asda, will be refocused for men only. The new brands will replace older ones such as Faded Glory, White Stag, and Just My Size.

The moves are part of Walmart’s push to make its apparel business more streamlined and stylish—a response to consumers shifting more of their budgets to experiences such as travel and eating out, rather than clothing. To find out more about Walmart’s branding strategy, click through to this article at AdAge.

What do the city names Annawan, Algonquin, Ashkum, Wenorah, Waukegan, and Wyanet have in common? And the rivers Illinois, Mississippi, Ohio, and Wabash?

All of these place names reflect the Native American heritage of the state of Illinois. Click through to this article at the Chicago Sun-Times to find out!

Why did they name it Spago? Was there really a laundry at the French Laundry? And why is it Pizza Hut and not Pizza Bistro? Find out the stories behind the names of famous restaurants in this interesting article at The Balance. Here’s a sample:

Chez Panisse Café – Berkeley, California

Chez Panisse is known as the birthplace of modern California cuisine and helped start a movement for restaurants to use fresh, local ingredients. Co-founder Alice Waters named the café after a character in a film trilogy by Marcel Pagnol (who was a French novelist, playwright and filmmaker). Chez Panisse is a restaurant legend and was number 20 on Restaurant Magazine’s Best Restaurants in the World.