London Banter - View Single Post

Paul Terry

In message .com,
writes

So the question is: Do cartographers follow street signposting
conventions, or, do they "correct" the spelling of street names
back into their normal English form?

Don't rely on cartographers (not at least before the late 19th century)
for definitive spellings. It is common to find quite different spellings
of the same word, such as "fyelde and feild" [sic], or "saint and
seynte" on the same map - remember that English spelling was not
standardised in bygone times.

Moreover, has cartographic practice, in this respect, changed over
time?

In cartography there has been a long tradition of copying and updating
earlier maps (with some notable exceptions) because of the cost of
surveying and plate-making. It would probably be fair to say that the
two big London re-mapping projects in the 1860s (Stanford's Library Map
and Weller's Dispatch Atlas) tended to set new standards of accuracy.
These days, I suspect that mapmakers generally follow the lead given by
the Ordnance Survey, especially with regard to spellings of road and
place names.
--
Paul Terry