Re: (Very) plain 7-bit ASCII in US placenames

From: John D. Burger (john@mitre.org)
Date: Mon Oct 17 2005 - 08:06:43 CST

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    >> The town was apparently hard-hit in the Great
    >> Midwestern Apostrophe Shortage of 1893 :)
    >
    > Not the city's fault. A US federal body in charge of standardizing
    > the spelling of geographic names--not sure if it was the Post Office
    > Department or the Board on Geographic Names--long ago banned
    > apostrophes and diacritical markings

    See
    http://interactive2.usgs.gov/faq/list_faq_by_category/get_answer.asp?
    id=788
    for the relevant FAQ entry about apostrophes. But note that there is
    no 7-bit restriction - these are some official names I found in the
    USGS database:

       Bayou Grande Écore
       Río Ángeles
       Campamento de Niños

    The search interface even allows Unicode input. Also note that the NGA
    (née NIMA), the US agency in charge of cataloging US-external names,
    also allows diacritics in those names.

    - John D. Burger
       MITRE

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