Highways England rebrand accused of being an 'offensive' waste of £7m

[Conekicker]

Assuming this pointless waste of the public purse goes ahead, on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being "It looks great" to 10 being "WTF is that supposed to be?", how naff do you think the new logo will be?

I'm going with a 12, maybe a 13.

Can it be worse than the "zig zag of indecision"?

Yes.

Expect some crass mangling of the St George's Cross into a 4 arm mini roundabout or something.

How much will you charge them for that idea? Remember there's £7m up for grabs...

[Bryn666]

Assuming this pointless waste of the public purse goes ahead, on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being "It looks great" to 10 being "WTF is that supposed to be?", how naff do you think the new logo will be?

I'm going with a 12, maybe a 13.

Can it be worse than the "zig zag of indecision"?

Yes.

Expect some crass mangling of the St George's Cross into a 4 arm mini roundabout or something.

How much will you charge them for that idea? Remember there's £7m up for grabs...

£6,999,999.99 - I'll undercut the enemy.

[Conekicker]

I'm mulling over applying for Jimbo's job. He pulled £487k last year. I'd do it for half that and all the PC nonsense would be right out of the window on day one of my reign.

[roadtester]

Can it be worse than the "zig zag of indecision"?

Yes.

Expect some crass mangling of the St George's Cross into a 4 arm mini roundabout or something.

How much will you charge them for that idea? Remember there's £7m up for grabs...

£6,999,999.99 - I'll undercut the enemy.

But then the contract will go to an alumnus of Cambridge Analytica/Vote Leave who is a pal of Dominic Cummings for £500 million.

[someone]

Say I have a bathroom upstairs and a bathroom in the cellar. I might well refer to the latter as "the bathroom in the cellar" or "the cellar bathroom". I strongly doubt that any native English speaker would refer to it as "bathroom cellar". In fact I think this reaches the nub of my problem with this construction: when you put two nouns together in a Germanic language, the first modifies the second, not the other way round.

The English language is quite often dependent on context, more than many people may realize. Consider any number of homonyms. ("I went to Reading to get the local paper, it was A4. But I should not joke about A4, it is stationary.") Something which is very true of Swedish too.

There is an ambiguity in combining "bathroom" and "cellar" as either could possess the other. So here the word order is necessary as a way to resolve that ambiguity.

But "Highways" cannot possess "England," so there is no ambiguity. This allows it to be used in contexts like proper nouns where it does not cause any confusion. Similar to how we do not need to impose archaic rules on advocates general.

Analysing the usage I would describe the former as an implied possessive ("cellar's bathroom") but the latter as an implied colon ("Highways: England"). The use of a localizing suffix is to function as a subtitle to subdivide the main noun rather than as a suffix to indicate possession of one.

Such a name would be wrong anyway, because the management company has no interest in the vast majority of England's highways, most of which are managed by local authorities. Instead highways can be divided into national ones in England, Wales, and Scotland, and local ones, which can be further subdivided by the local authorities. And a linguistic function obviously does not require all such subdivisions be explicitly used, so its use is not affected by a lack of "Highways Torbay."

Maybe it is this difference of implied relationship between the two nouns which makes "England Highways" sound jarring and unnatural to me. I am struggling to think of an example with a geographic name used in that way, rather than with an explicit possessive or in an adjectival form.

If people are thinking "Why did they use that peculiar spelling?" or "Are they completely illiterate?" they are not paying so much attention to the actual content.

It is unreasonable to imply that those who dislike a given development and personally choose not to use it think the language should be frozen.

I am going to guess that you are literally the only person who thought any of that on seeing the name "Highways England."

And I use "literally" in its correct, over 300-year-old, sense as an intensifier. But only barely because I have known enough pedants who would make a fuss over it, and any other innovation since Shakespeare, too. But English is a community language and no matter whether people dislike something, it is usage which governs language and no one gets a veto.

It is an undeniable fact that the word order in question has been intentionally used for some time*, and is accepted. That is it is easily understood and recognized without confusion. Liked or otherwise. There is objective evidence of that.

No one can seriously argue that there is anyone who thinks "B.B.C. Essex" refers to a different Essex owned by the B.B.C. There must be people reading this in other parts of the country who will have not heard that specific name, but will nevertheless immediately understand it is a service provided by the B.B.C. in Essex.

By definition that means that such formulations are correct use of English. They have met the rules to be so. They are used widely enough to be understood, and they are understood without confusion. You do not have to like them. They do not have to be a use that applies in any and all contexts. But in the context as used by Highways England you cannot say the usage is obscure or misunderstood.

Appealing to being a Germanic language is appealing both to a prescriptive authority and the past. So if you wish to claim that modern English is bound by those rules to determine what is and is not correct, and are not simply expressing a personal preference, then it is perfectly reasonable to expect you to say at which point such rules were fixed and could not longer evolve.

Because that fixed point is what gives "a Germanic Language" influence on modern usage rather than simply being an origin story that has become irrelevant over time.

(* I am not going to research the earliest such usages, but when did air force bases start using the formulation "R.A.F. Mildenhall" for its bases? And I am pretty sure the name "B.B.C. North" started in the 1930s for producing the B.B.C. North Regional Programme. A compound of compounds rather than using the adjective form to modify either the "B.B.C." or the "Regional Programme.")

[roadtester]

But "Highways" cannot possess "England," so there is no ambiguity. This allows it to be used in contexts like proper nouns where it does not cause any confusion. Similar to how we do not need to impose archaic rules on advocates general.

HIghway's England.

Highways' England.

[FosseWay]

^^ Please show me where I have said anything about anyone having a "veto". Everyone is entitled to both have a preference and to express it without people putting words in their mouth. (Edit - that was directed at someone, not roadtester)

You are right that English does not have a specific linguistic authority in the mould of the Académie Française, and that therefore what is regarded as "standard" (a better term IMO than "correct") is both much more fluid and much more democratically decided. But that does not mean that "standard" language does not exist, and that any utterance is correct simply by virtue of being uttered, which you appear to be arguing.

Personally I think we tend to draw a distinction between how we use proper nouns (including acronyms like BBC or RAF) and normal ones, so I don't see a complete parallel between "Highways England" and "RAF Lakenheath". I just happen to feel that "Highways England" is the wrong way round. We say "Sheffield Council", not "Council Sheffield". "England Highways" would fit the pattern, but in cases where there is a clear adjective form, we tend to use it, so "English Highways".

[Bryn666]

How much will you charge them for that idea? Remember there's £7m up for grabs...

£6,999,999.99 - I'll undercut the enemy.

But then the contract will go to an alumnus of Cambridge Analytica/Vote Leave who is a pal of Dominic Cummings for £500 million.

But I'm a freak/weirdo with a gmail account, surely I'm perfectly qualified for Domworld.

[Fenlander]

Off topic but my wife recently got annoyed at our son for using the phrase “my bad”, which I thought was quite a good phrase with a clear and obvious meaning.

I both hate it & love it in equal measure. It's a 5 letter 2 word way of saying something like "I'm sorry, that was completely my fault and I take responsibility for it" but it's also new and possibly txt spk so bad at the same time.

[trickstat]

Maybe it is this difference of implied relationship between the two nouns which makes "England Highways" sound jarring and unnatural to me. I am struggling to think of an example with a geographic name used in that way, rather than with an explicit possessive or in an adjectival form.

I give you England Athletics:

https://www.englandathletics.org/

[Chris Bertram]

Off topic but my wife recently got annoyed at our son for using the phrase “my bad”, which I thought was quite a good phrase with a clear and obvious meaning.

I both hate it & love it in equal measure. It's a 5 letter 2 word way of saying something like "I'm sorry, that was completely my fault and I take responsibility for it" but it's also new and possibly txt spk so bad at the same time.

I'm sure "my mistake" works in most applicable situations.

[roadtester]

Off topic but my wife recently got annoyed at our son for using the phrase “my bad”, which I thought was quite a good phrase with a clear and obvious meaning.

I both hate it & love it in equal measure. It's a 5 letter 2 word way of saying something like "I'm sorry, that was completely my fault and I take responsibility for it" but it's also new and possibly txt spk so bad at the same time.

I'm sure "my mistake" works in most applicable situations.

That's a whole extra syllable and fifty per cent more effort!

[Chris Bertram]

Maybe it is this difference of implied relationship between the two nouns which makes "England Highways" sound jarring and unnatural to me. I am struggling to think of an example with a geographic name used in that way, rather than with an explicit possessive or in an adjectival form.

I give you England Athletics:

https://www.englandathletics.org/

The Rugby Football Union prefers to market itself as England Rugby these days

[roadtester]

Take another example.

English Heritage is IMHO a hundred times better than Heritage England would be.

[chaseracer]

Remember Consignia?

Large-ish Vauxhall, right...?

[Marzo]

I think the rise of 'for' in government is specifically an attempt to rebrand departments as more helpful and approachable and less aloof and monolithic.

Yes. Just wait for the Home Office to be rebranded as the Ministry for State Security...

Don't you mean Bureau of State Security?

[Chris Bertram]

I think the rise of 'for' in government is specifically an attempt to rebrand departments as more helpful and approachable and less aloof and monolithic.

Yes. Just wait for the Home Office to be rebranded as the Ministry for State Security...

Don't you mean Bureau of State Security?

Miniluv will do just fine.

[FosseWay]

I think the rise of 'for' in government is specifically an attempt to rebrand departments as more helpful and approachable and less aloof and monolithic.

Yes. Just wait for the Home Office to be rebranded as the Ministry for State Security...

Don't you mean Bureau of State Security?

I was thinking more of the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, generally known as the Stasi, which indeed uses the "for/für" construction rather than being Ministerium der Staatssicherheit, which would use "of" in English.

But the apartheid-era internal security service of South Africa was indeed called the Bureau of State Security in its English form. The BOSS acronym was, rather like the short form Stasi, not generally used by the Bureau and its employees but rather by opponents, journalists, and ordinary people.

[WHBM]

Highways England ungrammatical ?

A good number of the airlines in the world seem to have longstanding two word names, the medium followed by the country. Air France, Air Canada, Air New Zealand, etc.

Then we have NHS England, much in the news at the moment which must delight the PR agency that thought it up. To me this seems an oxymoron, the N is for National, presumably of Britain, then it qualifies it down to just England. Surely it should be HS England ?

[trickstat]

Highways England ungrammatical ?

A good number of the airlines in the world seem to have longstanding two word names, the medium followed by the country. Air France, Air Canada, Air New Zealand, etc.

Then we have NHS England, much in the news at the moment which must delight the PR agency that thought it up. To me this seems an oxymoron, the N is for National, presumably of Britain, then it qualifies it down to just England. Surely it should be HS England ?

While I agree that technically HS England would be more correct, I think this comes down to recognition. As a set of initials pretty much everyone knows what NHS stands for, while HS could stand for High Speed, Highways Scotland, Hawker Siddeley etc etc.