Martinez: ‘M’, or ‘Mz’

[DRT]

The only change I would like to see is for every shipper to have a double letter abbreviation. This is principally down to future-proofing but also so that we do not have a false hierarchy.

Please confirm that you would prefer to double-letter such obscure ports as Dow, Fonseca, Graham, Kopke, Noval, Sandeman, Taylor, Vesuvio, Warre.

In many ways, I could see declaring that only Dow, Fonseca, Graham, Taylor, and Warre qualify for single-letter status. At least to me, those are easily the 5 biggest brands in Port.

50 years ago that list would undoubtedly have included Cockburn. Today it doesn't. Selecting today's top houses for single-letter status is not future-proof.

[jdaw1]

{Long deep intake of breath.} We are here as drinkers of port, not as drinkers of new New-World stuff that has existed for, ooh, three summers! We are here as drinkers of port, a drink of these isles, even if not wholly from these isles, and sharing a few centuries of its resplendent history, and some of its not-quite-so-resplendent moments. We scorn the idea that, at any moment, a progressive Leader might bring us to the promised time of Year 0. All will change! All be new! Cast out the old! Nonsense. Rather, we are deeply rooted in our history, and we will not idly cast aside these fine shippers who have nourished our forebears, our admirals and generals, our leaders and those led—the great and the forgotten. Yes, we may safely assume that, just as today one cannot have too much G85, that will also be true of future vintages, similarly labelled.

G is Graham. For it should be so. W is Warre. V is Vesuvio, despite the interrupted history. T is Taylor; F is Fonseca. And a century of being the best entitles Cockburn, despite its hiatus for two-and-a-half decades from 1980, to the letter C. For it should be so.

{Looks scornfully at these whippersnappers who dare to cast aside the achievements of their foresighted predecessors; strokes beard; looks around for glass; sees that it is empty; snorts loudly; and leaves, closing the door quietly.}

[DRT]

Further thoughts welcomed.

You appear to have missed out the words "will not be" from this sentence.

[jdaw1]

Further thoughts were, and still are, welcomed. But I do not promise to agree with them.

To what would you abbreviate Dow?

[Glenn E.]

SD.

Tongue firmly planted in cheek.

[DRT]

To what would you abbreviate Dow?

SC.

[jdaw1]

For a set of abbreviations to become the de facto standard, they have to go with the grain of what people have been doing. There can be improvements, especially at the edges, but a major overturning of the whole cart will require a reward of immediate gratification. My anecdotal observation is that, even before the TN index and abbreviation list, people referred to the likes of T63, F66, D70, W77, G85, V94, and didn’t seem to use anything longer for those shippers.

If our list of abbreviations has Dow as S&C, is it more likely that:

• People will use “S&C”?
• People will ignore our list and use “D”?

[DRT]

SC was a joke.

"Dw" would work.

[jdaw1]

If our list of abbreviations has Dow as Dw, is it more likely that:

• People will use “Dw”?
• People will ignore our list and use “D”?

[jdaw1]

Also, I think Kopke should be K, as it is, and Krohn should be WK, as in “Wiese & Krohn”. Thoughts?

[DRT]

If our list of abbreviations has Dow as Dw, is it more likely that:

• People will use “Dw”?
• People will ignore our list and use “D”?

Whatever our list contains people will use what they want to use. My objective is to arrive at a list of abbreviations that is intuitive, consistent and in no way implies a hierarchy. The selection of a handful of today's top shippers to have the honour of a single letter abbreviation is creating a hierarchy. That is bad (a) because the list doesn't need a hierarchy and (b) because it might not stand the test of time.

[jdaw1]

Whatever our list contains people will use what they want to use. My objective is to arrive at a list of abbreviations that is intuitive, consistent and in no way implies a hierarchy. The selection of a handful of today's top shippers to have the honour of a single letter abbreviation is creating a hierarchy. That is bad (a) because the list doesn't need a hierarchy and (b) because it might not stand the test of time.

Ah ha! My objective is to have a list of abbreviations that is intuitive, consistent, and sufficiently so that it will actually be used — such that it will become the de facto standard. I’m perfectly happy to have a hierarchy: the single-letter shippers have been important for long enough to have earned that. For almost all users of such a list, W is Warre. Etc.

[DRT]

Ah ha! My objective is to have a list of abbreviations that is intuitive, consistent, and sufficiently so that it will actually be used — such that it will become the de facto standard. I’m perfectly happy to have a hierarchy: the single-letter shippers have been important for long enough to have earned that. For almost all users of such a list, W is Warre. Etc.

Let's put this in the context of a book that uses these abbreviations extensively and, with a following wind, is published during the next decade and remains relevant, in print and in use for ten more decades thereafter. Is it likely that the hierarchy will have remained consistent through that time? Even if those given single-letter designation now do not go backwards, will others have a claim to a place in the elite list?

[Glenn E.]

My objective is to arrive at a list of abbreviations that is intuitive, consistent and in no way implies a hierarchy. The selection of a handful of today's top shippers to have the honour of a single letter abbreviation is creating a hierarchy. That is bad (a) because the list doesn't need a hierarchy and (b) because it might not stand the test of time.

In that case I believe you need to use 3-letter abbreviations. What may seem intuitive to us right now may not seem intuitive in 100 years after a shipper has (nearly) disappeared and some other shipper with a similar name has shown up. Even 3-letter abbreviations might not survive the test of time.

[jdaw1]

Mostly surviving the test of time, with modest alterations as the facts develop, would suffice for me. Especially if we gain widespread use, that is, being the de facto standard.

[AHB]

SC was a joke.

Please - explain this concept. What is this?

[jdaw1]

S&C

Clue!

[uncle tom]

Ah ha! My objective is to have a list of abbreviations that is intuitive, consistent, and sufficiently so that it will actually be used — such that it will become the de facto standard.

I've mulled this one several times over the years, being as pedantic as most of us here, and in pursuit of the perfect formula..

..trouble is, just about every system I can conceive gets confounded along the way!

If you use single letters for the big names, two for the 'second division' and three for the rest; you get the problem Derek identifies, of the big name line-up changing over time, and more frequent changes in the second division.

In theory you have enough permutations of two letters to go round, but in practice, this would lead to many abbreviations being wholly unrecognisable.

Then you could opt for the airport coding system - three letters that are usually an identifiable abbreviation. However, without the authority to dictate; such an abbreviation needs to be constructed according to a standard formula; and just about every formula I can come up with (that is not impossibly complex..) -gets scuppered when applied to Noval, Noval Silval & Noval Nacional, which are sometimes all produced in the same vintage.

The only real solution is to have a system that is annexed to the document concerned, and which, in our increasingly paperless age, will expand to reveal the full text when one highlights or hovers over the relevant abbreviation. Once such a system has been created by one person, others would be easily tempted to copy and paste, rather than create their own.

Tom

[jdaw1]

Excepting C, no letter has more than one ‘big-name’ candidate. These are all obvious: D, F, G, N, O, S, T, V, W. (Note that I’m conceding B and K.)

As for C, well, Croft has been superior to Cockburn for a handful of decades, but Croft has never been top-dog. (Even TFP might see F and T as better VPs.) And as Cockburn had a century of supremacy, I exerted a little authorial authority—but only a little—and said that C is Cockburn, Cr is Croft.

I agree that there is no system guaranteed to last forever. But lasting for a while, with occasional small alterations, rather like ISO 3166, would be good enough for me.

Is this so terrible?