OpenStreetMap
I total disagree with abrevating names in many cases. And already had some discussions about that. Today I searched for Hannoversch-Münden and wondered because the name of the place was abrevated as Hann.-Münden. I renamed it to the full name and this was the 23rd change to the node.
How can so many people be so wrong? There was even no alt_name with the full name.
Discussion
Comment from Hobgoblin on 19 September 2013 at 16:04
I see the train station nearby is the same and is also abbreviated?
Comment from Pieren on 19 September 2013 at 16:16
Use “short_name” for the abbreviated version.
Comment from 715371 on 19 September 2013 at 17:50
The abbreviation seems to be official, but is completely strange. The abbreviation is completely official even the Duden gives the expression the role of an official word.
http://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Hann__Muenden
But every source says that Hann.-Münden is the short form of Hannoversch Münden. So at OSM we are able to decide, because we have more than the name-tag!
I do understand that the name of the place is long so the people don’t want to write the non-abbreviated form. But actually there are places with longer names which do not abbreviate.
In contrast to “St.” which means Sankt in German, “Hann.” is not a usual abrevation and well known.
To chose “Hannoversch Münden” is a good decision, because nobody says “Hann. Münden”. It is spelt “Hannoversch Münden”. And even on the website of the place you can see Hannoversch Münden in the logo.
Actually the spelling of the abbreviated form is a mess:
The Duden gives “Hann.-Münden”
The place itself uses “Hann. Münden” and “Hannoversch Münden”
On the Ortsschilder (which mark the begin of the settling) are labeled with “Hann. Münden”
The Deutsche Bahn recognizes “Hannoversch Münden”, but gives “Hann Münden” on the route planner.
On the older pictures at Wikipedia the town is just called “Münden”
I will wait for an reaction of the local mappers.
Comment from 715371 on 19 September 2013 at 17:56
@Pieren: I changed the tagging to
name = Hannoversch Münden
short_name = Hann. Münden
loc_name = Münden
@Hobgoblin: The train station uses the abreviation - probably it is labeled on the Station, too. The Abbreviation is official - so it is of course not wrong, but we are able to choose shown with the tagging above.