The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1895-06-07
GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES.
Queer Discoveries of a Government
Notwithstanding Fixed.

Board-Spelling Fixed.
WASHINGTON. June 7, 1S95.-The
United States Board on Geographic
Names has adjourned until the first of
September, when it will have completed
the first five years of it's existence. Dur
ing this time it has settled innumerable
disputed points. The duty of this board
is to settle the proper spelling of geo.
graphical names, and it's authority is
derived from an executive order promul-
gated by President Harrison September 4,
1890. in which the personnel of. the board
was named and its duties defined and all
officials were enjoined to follow the
spelling Of geographical names as pre-
scribed by that bureau.
The board has held forty-twO meetings
and has decided more than 1000 cases of
disputed names. AS al illustration OF
the way this work is conducted here is
in Texas known and d~esignared in the
postal guide AS 'Desdimonia.'' IT was
SO evidently at variance with the &C
~respondence Was entered into with the
County Clerk, and that official contended
that it should be spelled "Desdemonia."
The board, after consideration, agreed
that it should be Desdemona, the ac-
copied spelling of the liame, and here
after it will. appear in every. map. report
or rn o5aef P %he board is has BEEN p : the largely geG5
controlled by local usage. when such
usage is clearly established.
Another illustration appears in the case
with the County Clerk showed. that it
was held to be correct, the official stating
second month in the year, but for a man
who spelled his name that way. The
board. however. inserted the missing r."
and the name will hereafter be FEB
ruarV.p
Some strange cases appear in that
part of the country where corruptions
spelling. The phonetic. Anglicising of
the French language has led to queer
names. A stream in Missouri, named by
amount of burned timber found along its
maps as mob Ruly.',, The ozan Prairie,
ally named by the French prairie Aux
Anes,' which means the Prairie OF
Asses" "ozann is the phonetic corrup,
Colorado there is a street known as the
"Pickatwire.'' 1t was originally a
French name and should be "Purga-
toire."
These c%oruptions have. been permitted
to stand, for if the board were to correct
such errors as these, now familiar by
long sage, their duties w M2olIa meyer aelsa
One of the decisions of the board long
since made was that "Behring Sea" was
a German1ZeQ SpeillHg OIL lHe LdLuS "
the original Danish discoyerer of that
ocean, which was "Bering'' without the
Fh." In the official proceedings of the
Paris Tribunal the corrupted spelling
was retained, but in the proceedings as
reprinted officially. by the State Depart
~anaIaiIv w 81 aIso .c %Ita "k9 T + ofiei al
determination is that the initial letter
should be "K' and not &C." and it is
accordingly spelled Korea, in all the
State Department documents. :.
the case of Woods Hole. the harbor and
village, in the State of M~assachusetts
The name was originally Woods Hole.
but was changed several years g by
the summer Tsid At OF Of the the Place acesnte 10
in Official and local usage and by the
postofice department.
The Fish Commission has a station
here, and there resulted much confusion
from the action of the board, the harbor
the new. All its last meeting, therefore.
Among the departures approved by
the board are these:-.
Dropping the final CHI In the termin-
ough" to 'boro": the spelling of the
word center" as here given: the dis
continuance of the use of the hyphen in
connecting parts of names: the omission
of the letters "ch' after the names OF
county seats: the simplifcation of names
their combination into one word: the
avoidance of the use of the. diacritic
characters: the avoidance of the use OF
the poSsessive form of names, and the
dropping of the words"city' and town"
as parts of m