REPORT OF THE UNITED STATES GEOGRAPHIC BOARD. 15 



The Board considers it desirable to depart from local usage in 

 certain cases in order to effect reforms in ]iomenclature. Among 

 these departures approved by the Board are the following : 



(a) The avoidance, so far as seems practicable, of the possessive 

 form of names. 



(5) The dropping of the final " h" in the termination of " burgh." 



(c) The abbreviation of " borough " to " boro." 



(d) The spelling of the word " center " as here given, 



(e) The discontinuance of the use of the hyphens lu connecting 

 parts of names. 



(/) The omission, wherever practicable, of the letters " C. H." 

 (courthouse) after the names of county seats. 



(g) The simplification of names consisting of more than one word 

 by their combination into one word. 



(A) -The avoidance of the use of diacritic characters. 



(^) The dropping of the words " city " and " town " as parts of 

 names. 



All of these changes are warranted by the direction of develop- 

 ment. The possessive form of name is rapidly disappearing, except 

 in rare cases where good reason exists for its retention. In most cases 

 this is effected by dropping the apostrophe and the final " s." In 

 certain cases, however, usage or euphony appears to require the re- 

 tention of the final " s," when the apostrophe only is dropped. 



Concerning the termination " burg " or " burgh," as Harrisburg, 

 an extensive correspondence has developed the fact that in more 

 than three-fourths of the places having this termination the final 

 " h " is not in local use. The case of the termination " boro " or 

 " borough " is very similar ; the present tendency is strongly toward 

 the substitution of the abbreviated form, and the Board, therefore, 

 deems it advisable to induce uniformity in this matter in the manner 

 indicated. 



In the case of the word " center " as part of a name, as Mansfield 

 Center, Center Rutland, usage appears to be about equally divided 

 between " center " and " centre," and the Board has adopted the 

 first of the above forms of the word. 



Hyphens in connecting parts of names appear to be useless, while 

 they add to the complexity of the spelling. 



The practice of adding the letters " C. H.," meaning courthouse, 

 to the name of a county seat is prevalent, especially in the Southern 

 States. Frequently the place has two names, one being its charter 

 name, the other the name of the county with " C. H." appended ; thus 

 the county seat of Raleigh County, W. Va., is known as Beckley and 

 as Raleigh C. H. 



