Taipei's [ridiculous] nicknumbering system for street names
Here is the official but mistake-filled Taipei City Government map of the nicknumbering system for the main streets of Taipei.
view larger and clearer version of this Taipei street map
Here are some of the many mistakes on this map:
- On 4A, Chungking (Chongqing) is misspelled "Chunking."
- On 5A, Chengteh (Chengde) is misspelled "Chenteh."
- Shortened versions of ordinal numbers should not have a period. Thus, "10th. Blvd." is wrong. "10th Blvd." would be correct. Note that every single street on the city's map is written in the wrong form.
- On 6B, there should be a space between the period and the ampersand.
- On 1B, there should be a space between the period and Blvd.
- On every single avenue name, there should be a space before Ave.
- On 8A, there should be a space both before and after the ampersand.
- On 9A, there should be a space both before and after the ampersand.
- The order for direction in English is north, south, east, and west. Thus, 1A, 3A, 4A, 6A, 7A, 10A, 11A, 12A, and 13A, which all use "S./N.," are wrong. This problem is all the more noticable because the S's are written nearer the top of the map (north) than the N's.
- There is also the more basic problem that the map is so stylized that it bears little resemblance to the way the streets are actually laid out.
Thus, not only was the nicknumbering system a monumentally stupid idea, the official guide to it is unprofessional and riddled with errors. Typical!
That's more than fifty errors on just one simple, little map. Some of these errors are significant, some aren't. None of them, however, would have been difficult for a competent, experienced copy editor to find and correct. The sheer quantity of mistakes reveals the sloppy, slipshod, unprofessional approach Taipei takes to such matters. Imagine what Taipei's plan to have English versions of everything by Sept. 30, 2002, is going end up like! I have yet to see even a Taipei map with correct and consistent romanization. That shouldn't be too much to ask.
The Taipei City Government needs to learn that mei guanxi isn't good enough.