The Stupidity of Governments

Recently I was browing a local government website and saw that the name of one of our local beaches was misspelled: "Spanish Bank" instead of "Spanish Banks". So I sent them a short note to fix it.

Today I received the following e-mail from Vancouver City Hall:

Rest assured that this is not a typo and we, like you, were under the impression that the "s" was correct as it had been used for many generations.

However, several years back, one of our Engineers was researching the area and reviewed the original naval charts where it was clearly named Spanish Bank- and there is only one bank-

In the interest of being correct we are changing signs and references as we need to and dropping the "s".
For the first while it sounded strange to say but now, even I can say Spanish Bank and feel comfortable.

Hope this answers your question.
Cheers
Terri Clark


Here's how I responded:

Dear Terri,

Oh no, don't tell me it's so. It may very well be the case that the original name "generations ago" was "Spanish Bank" but common usage for eons has been the plural version. It is commonly accepted practice that common usage of a term makes it perfectly acceptable over time.

Spanish Banks covers a very wide area. From the perspective of an airplane or satellite, perhaps there is just one bank, but to anyone walking or boating along the seashore, the plural version make a whole lot more sense.

And you've indicated that you're going to spend precious tax dollars to change all the signage from "Banks" to "Bank"? What a complete waste of money! While I appreciate you writing me back about this, it is just more proof that those of you at city hall - elected and unelected - have little to no respect for where this money comes from.

Disheartened,

Robert Werner