Place Names Criticised

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32351, 17 July 1970, Page 4

Place Names Criticised

The choice of place names for the Antarctic is criticised by Mr J. D. Pascoe in the bulletin of the Federated Mountain Clubs of New Zealand. Mr Pascoe is the federation's nominee on the New Zealand Geographic Board.

“The New Zealand Antarctic Place Names Committee (which works as part of the geographic board) recommended. and the board approved, the usual plaster commemorating the personal Christian and-or surnames of cooks, bottlewashers, electronic experts, aerographers' mates and other notable persons.” said Mr Pascoe.

■The presentation of genuine descriptive names is unfortunately the exception. It seems that nothing can be done about this situation, except, perhaps, to hope that further generations of Antarctic inhabitants will exercise more imagination. “A point that must be made clear is that the annual plaster of ugly names is an American routine. New Zealand Antarctic mapmakers only name features that need names to pinpoint features in a report or map. American mapmakers decide that (say) 500 personal names must be squeezed into a map: these names are then sprayed and sprinkled into every nook and cranny or stuck onto every nunatak or outcrop. “When the Americans present their plaster to the Antarctic Place Names Committee its members have to accept it. The board, therefore, inherits, as it were, a congealed decision set, if not in letters of gold or in concrete, then in eternal ice,” said Mr Pascoe.