Month: March 2017

How London’s tube stations got their names

At some point in its history, Covent Garden lost an ‘n’ (Credit: Alamy)

London’s Underground has some unusual station names. They names are curiously, even bizarrely, whimsical. Some seem suited better to a medieval fantasy (Knightsbridge, Queensway) or a children’s book (Piccadilly Circus, Elephant & Castle) – and others still make Londoners giggle (Shepherd’s Bush, Cockfosters). But these names weren’t chosen simply to give city-dwellers an alternate world to imagine as they hurtle beneath the capital. Some of their origins, in fact, date back millennia. The BBC looks at 10 of their favorites to find out where the names really come from.

The names that break computer systems

Credit: Olivia Howitt

Forget choosing the correct password – what if you can’t even enter your name into a computer system? This BBC report from 2016 shows how difficult life can be for people with names like Jennifer Null and Janice Keihanaikukauakahihulihe’ekahaunaele. Forms often can’t deal with people who only have one name, or a single-letter surname, or names that are longer than expected. Find out how technology is slow to catch up with these “edge cases” – that is, unexpected and problematic cases for which the system was not designed.

Rachel Dolezal, activist who identified as black, changes name

Rachel Dolezal, former NAACP leader of Spokane, WA, who was embroiled in controversy after identifying as black despite being the biological daughter of white parents, has changed her name to Nkechi Amare Diallo, court records showed on Thursday.

Dolezal’s new name comes from two different countries in Africa. “Nkechi” originates from the Igbo tribe in Nigeria, and it means, “gift of god.” “Diallo” is Fulani and can be traced back to Guinea and Senegal. It means “bold.”

Dolezal’s memoir, “In Full Color,” is due out in March.

People’s names decide what they’re like, study says

Does your name suit you, or do you suit your name? A new study reveals that when presented with random names and faces, participants were significantly better at matching the name to the face than would be expected by random chance. This research, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, also showed that the scientists were able to train a computer to match names to faces even more accurately than the human volunteers.

 

 

Call for Papers: Pan-American International Symposium on Toponymy, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, May 3-5 2017

The organizers of the Pan-American International Symposium on Toponymy have announced that the official deadline for abstracts has been extended to the 12th of March 2017.  This conference will take place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil from the 3rd to the 5th of May 2017.  A special issue of the Brazilian Journal of Cartography will be published at the end of the conference.  Online conference registration information can be found here.

Three main themes will guide the event: Toponymy and education, Indigenous and minority Toponymy, Toponymy in maps. However, contributions on other themes may be accepted. The regional focus of the Symposium will be on the Americas, but also contributions focusing on countries, regions and places on other continents may be presented, since they may very well provide for stimulating comparisons. The languages of the Symposium will be Spanish, Portuguese, and English. Abstracts may be submitted in any of the three languages.

The conference is organized by the Joint IGU / ICA Commission on Toponymy, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) and the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), in cooperation with the Pan American Institute of Geography and History (PAIGH).

Call for Papers: XIX International Botanical Congress, Shenzhen, China, July 23-29 2017

From the 23rd to the 29th of July 2017, the XIX International Botanical Congress will be held in the Shenzhen Convention & Exhibition Center, Shenzhen, People’s Republic of China. For the 2017 meeting, proposals to amend the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plant (Melbourne Code) will be discussed by the Nomenclature Section of the Congress.  A list of the general symposia has been posted at the IBC website.

The deadline for abstract submissions for poster presentations has been extended to the 15th of March 2017. In addition to public, plenary and keynote lectures, they have scheduled more than 200 General Symposia covering all fields of plant sciences. Each symposium consists of either six presentations (one-session symposium) or 12 presentations (two-session symposium), with each being 20 minutes. Detailed information on the submission requirements can be found here.

SNSBI 26: Society for Name Studies in Britain, Milton, UK, March 24-27 2017

The Society for Name Studies in Britain and Ireland will be holding its Spring Conference from the 24th to the 27th of March in Milton, UK (near Didoct).  The conference location was selected in commemoration of the county survey volumes of Margaret Gelling. As space is filling up quickly, organizers encourage interested attendees to register soon.  For more details and registration, go to their website.

Many of the conference papers will relate to Oxfordshire and the surrounding counties but papers on all regions of Britain and Ireland will be presented. The speaker on Friday evening will be Ros Faith, on farming in woodland and in downland. Papers on place-names of Oxfordshire and the surrounding region will cover topics including: Anglo-Saxon estates, animals and place-names, field-names and archaeology. To celebrate the publication of The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland, there will also be a number of papers on personal names of the area: locative surnames of Oxfordshire, South Midlands surnames, and names of the Gloucestershire Cotswolds.