odonymy taxonomy

yes, great minds do think alike!

Michelle Manafy at E Content, writes a readable essay arguing in favor of the organic, intuitive, and historically meaningful "user-generated" tagging as opposed to "an orderly top-down taxonomy". And she does this by comparing idiosyncratic street names to numbered and lettered grids.

When I think about these approaches, I can get lost in esoteric historical facts, but ultimately, the point of all this street naming is to help us get from point A to point B. Okay, naming them A and B is certainly clearer, but it isn't terribly intuitive. If I want to pick pumpkins at Angevine farm, I take a right onto Angevine Road off Route 341. Sure, you could argue that if and when the Angevines succumb to the perils of factory farming, the road will lose its meaning as it is overrun with development houses, but somehow I believe that the impact of its populist name will remain for decades after the Angevines host their last hayride.

Such is the appeal of user-generated tagging. Certainly, an orderly top-down taxonomy will be clearer and more accurate, but while it makes navigation neat, it can be imposing and unwelcoming. For those of us who have never, say, studied etymology, a taxonomy is not second nature.

I've been neglecting taxonomy (Greek for "arrangement method") in favor of mapping and geography, but this essay points to one of the many reasons why I think the subject areas are related. I'll address this soon, promise.

Comments

[Josh Knauer]

Clearly places like Washington, DC are a good example of a geotaxonomy. You can always tell how far from the center of the city you are by the first letter of the cross streets, as well as how many syllables the names are. If you start on Connecticut Ave in MD from the beltway, you will find that there are three syllable street names that are ordered from Z to A which then cycle back to a two syllable Z-A order and then eventually down to the letters themselves (thus the famous "K" Street).

There's so much to admire about the planning involved in the layout of DC, but your post reminded me that its street probably represent a planned geotaxonomy that really works.

-josh

[claire]

josh, thanks! i didn't know that!

the interstate system is also a planned geotaxonomy that would work if more people knew about it. east/west freeways have even numbers, and north/south have odd numbers. the numbers increase from west to east and north to south. route numbers divisible by 5 are the major routes.

the major routes have one or two digit numbers. auxiliary routes get three digits by adding an extra digit to the number of the highway they're attached to.

what's cool about this scheme for toponymy enthusiasts is that, even as young as the interstate system is, there are ghost names--names that indicate that there used to be a road nearby that isn't there anymore, or that has been renamed.

maybe i should write a post about it.