Dave,
of: Melbourne,Australia,
As the 'Alex Trebek', I've been called in fun, of just this little game thread, I've allways thought some commentary on the side of the actual lyrics, and subjects raised themselves would add some colour to the game, in a different way than our colorfoul fonts ! The subject of geographic place names will always perk my ears, as I am a cartographer. However, as I know is ocurring in your country, too, the field of cartography as a stand-alone 'profession' (harrumph and all that lol) has been consumed by the giant monster even bigger than gPS now, gIs - geographihc information systems. So almost all cartographers have now had to add the skill of programming and spatial analyses to their folder, and are called things anymore like me 'GIS Analyst' , and 'GIS Specialist' etc.
And I have studied/(read-of) the combined mapping curriculae around the world, and tell me if you feel its true there, but it has been said many times that what I also am here, a Geodetic Surveyor, (not Land Surveyor), has been combined 'down there' (we of all professions should know better than to say that lol) into a combined world trend-setting field going by several names, but the idea is combining all of the mapping sciences (cartography, geodesy, surveying - all types, GIS, photogrammetry,geography to some extent if approached as a science/mathematically etc, etc, ) into a new all-in-one 'Holistic' endeavour as the Ohio State University here in the USA has done, in creating the largest stand-alone College of Mapping Sciences in the world within the University, within The ( or one of the) larget Universities in the world, with over 110,000 students in 1990 count !
This combined 'Holistic' endeavour is called, on a rotating bus-route name cube currrently,
geomatics. In Canada , like, (I believe) Australia, as subjects (?) of the Queen under the Jurisdictional Province (yes/no?) of the U.K., (my anecdotal understanding, given the large constituency of both Countrymen in this forum; forgive me If I am wrong) Surveyors and Mappers (Geomatiques in Canada) are subject to registration with the U.K. with some Royal commmission as "Royally Chartered Surveyors" - is that true to your knowledge in Australia ?
And with regard to your comment in general, the Geography of Lighfoot's music has been the comment many times of his well-travelled exploits in any event, but also largely his well-known exploits in canoeing (voyageuring/trekking/portaging) and sea-kayaling, well into barely sub-arctic waters (as in barely not fully arctic circle waters at 65 N)largely in th 60's - early 80's on 500 -800 mile trips, and the geographic names commissions of our combined countries would have a hard time keeping up with the mention made in his songs of all his place names/rivers/(all forms of linear water features to mappers are
streams in solely the
field notes of American Surveyors et al)/point features, and bodies of water - bays,inland waterways, Seas (Beaufort Sea (sp?), Oceans per se, and large inland fresh water bodies (the Great Lakes, Hudson's Bay, The Great Slave ake, etc) that I am not surprised an ambiguity of Perth came up in his more distinctly Maritime Seafaring aspects of ocean-going/sailing in his songwriting.
It is very interesting that you would write of this; I have always thought a thread on Geography, and notably water features given Gordon's penchant for watercraft and related travel of ALL sizes/types would be very
a propos for this forum in general. Do you find a consensus of opinion on the Perth ambiguity in your circles there ? Are you in the Maritime professions, or in some form of the afore mentioned geo-sciences ? I forgot to include of course, the generalized but broad-stroke overvue of Geography as a discipline itself, housed as well within these new combined geo-sciences colleges within University, and the fields themselves indeed within a given country where the homogenization of the various geo-sciences are being experiment with, and combined in various fashions.
In University, I studied that in Australia (not that the subject of hierarchy of supervision matters a whit) Cartographers, Civil Engineers, and Geographers report at least on a Federal level to Surveyors in chain -of-authority. Is this true ? It is to varying degrees and combinations true throughout many countries of the world where Surveying has the legal decree
court de jour boundary evidence measurer, taker of parole testimony, court, judge, and jury, on the ground & in the field, settling legally all dispute large and small. This was indeed the case in the US prior to the FDR adminstration, who felt Surveyors had too much authority in the US what with Checks-and-balances in the Judicial branch, and promoted legislation to take the
court de jour part away, and hence, considerable percieved
prestige of Surveying ( which I could give a hoot about !).
Prior to that, Civil Engineers reported to Surveyors in the US (prior to 1929) , and the hierarchy reversed until WWII in the US, where the war revealed the need for the stand-alone mapping professional again , primarily from the prominence of Photogrammetric Intelligence Gathering and subsequent key map mapmaking endeavours of war efforts. Surveyor were once again a stand-alone profession, considered laterally equivalent in foolish hierarchy to Civil Engineers. Now, Surveying and Maping Curricula, unless in a school of technology i.e. para-professional degrees only, i,e, Civil Eng Technology, Surveying Technology et al, but rather Surveying Engineering and/or the anamorphosed subject strength axis of Geodetic Engineering (high geodesy and map projection, and gravity contingent), and (there is no such field as Geodesic Engineering), is as rigorous an Engineering discipline as any other ; identified primarily by the preponderance of physics and Mathematics as the distinguishing factor.
This, at the expense in curriculum, so sayeth the old-school legal expert Surveyors of Land and Cadastre, of the original strength in the field of Boundary Law, and Higher Surveying (Geodesy). The oldest-school still around (barely !)who worked under the pervue of pre-FDR court-de-jour Surveyors would maintain now that 4th,5th, 6th, and 7th semesters of post-calculus are at the expense of Boundary Law, Cadastral Sytems,etc,; more pertinent to
Land Surveying than Geodetic, Seismic, Hydrgraphic, or Geomorphologic Surveying (Topographic plus
movement) Are you involved in any of this in Austrlia, and do you have a perspectiove to share ?
In wrap, as the originator of this thread - I would run it by the group, but I would personally welcome any discussion fo the geography of place names as they do come up exclusively it seems in lyrics of course. Should sufficient interest exist in the
forum per se, a stand-alone thread would be in order, as this is a game thread, but we DO talk the lyrics here and there; I'd welcome it ! Good of you to take the time to bring this up, David, thank you.
We have another prominent Senior Member who is a regular in this thread you'll requently see my program highlight him in green; you may look for and "private message" - "
Joveski", of Melbourne as well. Anywhere you see his orange/brown name "
Joveski'to the
left, in the names column, you can click on it, be presented with a menu, and select "private message" if you want to talk to a fellow Melbourn(ian ?)
Thanks again , and for giving me the oppurtunity to runneth at the mouth !
