The Peng Kang Hill station name has already been taken.
Sua Ku station (mountain tortoise station)
Pak Chiu Cheng station (all the horny and nerdy engineering undergrads there)
Andrew Duffy
The stations are currently labelled JW3 and JW4, so we need to act fast so that the numbers become names, and the names do not all start with Nanyang.PHOTO: ST FILE
Sep 6, 2021
When Singapore Press Holdings launched a new paper in 1988, it was named The New Paper because it was new and it was made of paper. Genius. That was 33 years ago and it has gone online, yet despite being neither new nor a paper, its name hasn't changed.
When they built a bridge in Marina Bay in the shape of a double helix, they called it the Double Helix Bridge. Who comes up with these names? At first, the bridge opened only halfway so technically it was a Demi-Double Helix Bridge. Now you can walk all the way, but it's been renamed simply the Helix Bridge even though it's still in the form of a double helix.
Clearly, we have a mismatch between names and things in real life. To be sure, TNP was indeed new and printed on paper three decades ago. But then, there remains the question: How should we choose names? For taxpayer-funded projects, should we be democratic and invite the public to vote?
No. The public cannot be trusted.
In 2012, the government of Slovakia stopped a popular vote for a bridge to be named after action movie star Chuck Norris.
In 2016, Britain spent the equivalent of $350 million on a new polar exploration ship and asked the public what to call it. The public voted for the name Boaty McBoatface.
When I was younger, I worked in a factory making plastic dog baskets and padded bed-liners (I've come a long way). The logo was a cartoon dog. We asked the factory workers to submit new names for the dog and their suggestions were so disturbingly dirty and graphically rude that we just kept its old name, Comfy Humphrey.
So if the experts and the public are so unreliable, who can you trust to name things?
This is important because two new MRT stations are coming to Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and they need names.
We could follow precedent: We have Nanyang Drive, Nanyang Crescent, Nanyang Heights, Nanyang Grove, Nanyang Link, Nanyang Walk, Nanyang Avenue and Nanyang Circle. You see a pattern here? But because there are two, we can't call them both Nanyang station.
Currently, they're labelled JW3 and JW4, so we need to act fast so that the numbers become names, and the names do not all start with Nanyang.
In the past, NTU has fallen victim to this kind of sequential logic and numbered most of its halls. We do love engineers when they are building things and we will be happy when JW3 and JW4 open, but we cannot let engineers choose the names.
Even then, they could still go back to numbers. When the budget terminal opened at Changi Airport (remember that place, from too long ago?) there was a competition to name it.
They got 12,000 entries and a schoolboy won $2,000 for suggesting the name Budget Terminal. That's like striking 4-D with 0000.
Even the winner Jonathan Sng was reportedly taken aback. "I was very surprised when I became a finalist because I did not think Budget Terminal was an exciting name," he said.
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They've named them in numerical sequence even though it's not like there is a sequence and when you go to Changi first you go to Terminal 1 to see if your flight is there, then if it isn't you go to Terminal 2 next, and third you search in Terminal 3, and so on.
Me, I'm voting for Donnie Yen station - echoes of Chuck Norris there, why not? - and Station McStationplace, although I'm open to thousands of students disembarking every morning at Comfy Humphrey station, if they prefer.
Sua Ku station (mountain tortoise station)
Pak Chiu Cheng station (all the horny and nerdy engineering undergrads there)
The name game
With the construction of two MRT stations on the NTU campus starting soon, what – and how – should we name them?Andrew Duffy
The stations are currently labelled JW3 and JW4, so we need to act fast so that the numbers become names, and the names do not all start with Nanyang.PHOTO: ST FILE
Sep 6, 2021
When Singapore Press Holdings launched a new paper in 1988, it was named The New Paper because it was new and it was made of paper. Genius. That was 33 years ago and it has gone online, yet despite being neither new nor a paper, its name hasn't changed.
When they built a bridge in Marina Bay in the shape of a double helix, they called it the Double Helix Bridge. Who comes up with these names? At first, the bridge opened only halfway so technically it was a Demi-Double Helix Bridge. Now you can walk all the way, but it's been renamed simply the Helix Bridge even though it's still in the form of a double helix.
Clearly, we have a mismatch between names and things in real life. To be sure, TNP was indeed new and printed on paper three decades ago. But then, there remains the question: How should we choose names? For taxpayer-funded projects, should we be democratic and invite the public to vote?
No. The public cannot be trusted.
In 2012, the government of Slovakia stopped a popular vote for a bridge to be named after action movie star Chuck Norris.
In 2016, Britain spent the equivalent of $350 million on a new polar exploration ship and asked the public what to call it. The public voted for the name Boaty McBoatface.
Doggone it
When I was younger, I worked in a factory making plastic dog baskets and padded bed-liners (I've come a long way). The logo was a cartoon dog. We asked the factory workers to submit new names for the dog and their suggestions were so disturbingly dirty and graphically rude that we just kept its old name, Comfy Humphrey.
So if the experts and the public are so unreliable, who can you trust to name things?
This is important because two new MRT stations are coming to Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and they need names.
We could follow precedent: We have Nanyang Drive, Nanyang Crescent, Nanyang Heights, Nanyang Grove, Nanyang Link, Nanyang Walk, Nanyang Avenue and Nanyang Circle. You see a pattern here? But because there are two, we can't call them both Nanyang station.
Currently, they're labelled JW3 and JW4, so we need to act fast so that the numbers become names, and the names do not all start with Nanyang.
In the past, NTU has fallen victim to this kind of sequential logic and numbered most of its halls. We do love engineers when they are building things and we will be happy when JW3 and JW4 open, but we cannot let engineers choose the names.
Even then, they could still go back to numbers. When the budget terminal opened at Changi Airport (remember that place, from too long ago?) there was a competition to name it.
They got 12,000 entries and a schoolboy won $2,000 for suggesting the name Budget Terminal. That's like striking 4-D with 0000.
Even the winner Jonathan Sng was reportedly taken aback. "I was very surprised when I became a finalist because I did not think Budget Terminal was an exciting name," he said.
Work on 4 MRT stations serving NTU, Jurong industrial area to start by June
Six years later, the Budget Terminal was terminated. From its site arose a new flashier terminal with more shops and restaurants. It was named Terminal 4, presumably because they already had Terminals 1, 2 and 3 and mathematically 4 was next.They've named them in numerical sequence even though it's not like there is a sequence and when you go to Changi first you go to Terminal 1 to see if your flight is there, then if it isn't you go to Terminal 2 next, and third you search in Terminal 3, and so on.
Me, I'm voting for Donnie Yen station - echoes of Chuck Norris there, why not? - and Station McStationplace, although I'm open to thousands of students disembarking every morning at Comfy Humphrey station, if they prefer.
- Andrew Duffy is an assistant professor at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
