A PARCEL OF ATLASES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 925, 3 May 1957, Page 11

A PARCEL OF ATLASES

Sir-In a review of atlases which you recently printed you have given me two apostrophes where none was _ intended. I drew attention to the difference between Hawke Bay and Hawkes Bay and Arthur Pass and Arthurs Pass. I was made to say Hawke’s Bay and Arthur’s Pass; thus the criticism I made of Faber’s Atlas was extended a stage farther than I intended. The general confusion in this matter is of some interest. The New Zealand Geographic Board has adopted the usual

overseas pattern of eliminating the possessive form in all. cases: Cook’s Strait becomes Cook Strait. In some cases it is not possible to eliminate the s because of other factors, e.g., the province remains Hawkes Bay because it is so described by Statute. The sheet of water, however, being a geographical feature becomes Hawke Bay. The extension of this principle means that the s is nearly always eliminated from geographical features, but such things as St. Joseph’s Orphanage, which is not a geographical feature, would appear on a map as so spelt. Under this principle there seems little point in the agitation in Canterbury to retain Arthur’s Pass for what appears on present day maps at Arthur Pass. The argument that this was the pass used by Arthur Dobson and hence should have a possessive would logically apply to many more places in New Zealand. The name Arthur Pass, surely, gives as much honour to its discoverer as any other form. If the New Zealand Geographic Board gives way to local pressure in this instance it might as well scrap its rules and, indeed, fade gracefully out of existence.

D. W.

McKENZIE

(Wellington).