Was there a pause between Maryland and 3?

That's odd. I'd like to hear that myself.

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New problem!

Last night I heard "south i ten service road eeee" for "S I-10 Service Rd E".


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That's not good. A hyphen should never elicit a pause, at least certainly not when there isn't a space on both sides.

I'm gonna repost the thing I reported the other day for emphasis.

Recently I heard "south i ten service road eeee" for "S I-10 Service Rd E".

I believe this is the first documented case of "E" failing to expand to "east".

Blah. LA-3021, which used to say ell eh thirty twenty one, now says "Louisiana (pause) thirty thirty one". I'm not happy about it.


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Like I said about a week ago, it should be evaluated on a state-by-state basis. At least, we don't want XX- to say the letters on every occasion. LA- is obvious in Louisiana since the signs say "LA" on them and the people call them that, but on a state with a less intuitive USPS abbreviation that isn't used on their signs, I don't think we'd want that.

Maybe we could answer it more generally. Maybe this is more a philosophical question, but I don't think I'd mind all that much if XX- just said the state name for every state, and maybe we could even make that the standard for all states. Does it really matter if people call it "Route 6" or "L A 48", when "Massachusetts six" or "Louisiana forty-eight" would still convey the message just as well?

My problem isn't so much with "Louisiana" as it is with the pause.

Why is there a pause between MD- and LA- and the number? Was that an accident, or was it expected? There should never be a pause there. You wouldn't want it to say "stay left for i ...... ten".

As for LA (or XX), well, maybe we should be more careful with those? Every time I see a state name abbreviated on a sign it is not done using the USPS abbreviations. Rather, they're abbreviated "Ala." or "Va." or maybe "Calif."; perhaps we should incorporate those instead?

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Since you bring it up, how about "AFB" says "air force base" and "ANG" says "air national guard", for example? An exit I take a lot when I'm in Michigan is signed for "Selfridge ANG", or at least it was, and that was pronounced "Selfridge Ang", as if a word. I changed it to "A 'N' G", and now it says the letters, but it looks kinda gross.

Agreed on that, there's too much potential for conflict. I'm still kind of surprised "FM" got in there for "Federated States of Micronesia".

I heard it was fixed.

syborg_sasquatch wrote:I have another example of the "comma" phenomenon when "VA / " is in the street name string.

to I-95 / I-495 Beltway S / Richmond, VA / Andrews AFB. This one states "...Richmond {pause} Virginia comma Andrews AFB"

Tangentially related — but I want to posit that commas should generally not be used in segment names, at least certainly not between a city and state. It should be read as "Richmond Virginia", not as "Richmond...... Virginia". Using the comma means it's read the same as "Richmond / Virginia", which is odd.

Don't do that. The words won't wrap at all. Also, that kind of construction is usually pronounced wrong anyway (it sometimes says "slash" aloud, for example).


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