"RoseGarden" - - - - - - - from - nscave

A discussion is about to begin (again) on naming the place where I live. In 1996 the powers in charge at that time elected to do what they called "amalgamation." Halifax, Dartmouth, Bedford and certain outlying regions of Nova Scotia were all joined together to form Halifax Regional Municipality, often shortened to HRM.

Where's Zat?  

How important is a place name? Well having traveled a fair amount the last few years, you can bet that if I said I was from HRM to far away strangers, they are thinking what institution is that?

One time I said the full name, Halifax Regional Municipality. I was asked, "What sort of company is that? What do they make? Where is it located?"

So names are important. Now days when I am asked where am I from, I just say Nova Scotia and leave it at that. (Even that requires explanation sometimes to those who are geography impaired.)

I hope the new name chosen, if there is one, will indicate where we are from and that will enable us to respond proudly.

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I am not knocking my own home area. It goes on in other places too. Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport comes to mind, handy where we spend our winters. 

Where's Zat?  

Like my home area, that is a name that was selected in order not to offend anyone or make one location feel it is more important than the other.  The airport's original name before it was relocated and modernized was Panama City International airport. Do you think anyone from far away would ask for or know where Northwest Florida International Airport is?

Sometimes during our stay there the comments include, passenger traffic is down, there are not many flights, there isn't as many flights as there used to be and so on.

Could it be because no one from away knows where it is or what its close to?

Place names can be important. Especially for people from away. And names also pass from generation to generation. Get them right.

Why does thinking outside the box come to mind? Also half in the bag?

This work by NSCAVE is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License