With the construction of two MRT stations on campus starting soon, Andrew Duffy wonders what – and how – we should name them
Illustration and animation by Vivian Lim
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’s moved online, yet despite being neither new nor a paper its name hasn’t changed.
When they built a bridge at 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. It’s next to Benjamin Sheares Bridge which, for some reason, is not shaped like Benjamin Sheares.
Clearly, whoever has been put in charge of naming things needs to be re-assigned to some other job. But then, how should we choose names? 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, the UK spent $350 million on a new polar exploration ship and asked the public what to call it. The public voted for the name Boaty McBoatface.
Should we be democratic and invite the public to vote?
No. The public cannot be trusted.
And in my early career, 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 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. And it’s why we love engineers 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 4D with 0000.
Recently, they’ve changed the name to Terminal 4, though, 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.
In the past, NTU has fallen victim to this kind of sequential logic and numbered most of its halls. And it’s why we love engineers building things and we will be happy when JW3 and JW4 open, but we cannot let engineers choose the names.
Me, I’m voting for Donnie Yen station and Station McStationplace. Although I’m open to thousands of students disembarking every morning at Comfy Humphrey station, if they prefer.
This story was published in the Aug-Sep 2021 issue of HEY!. To read it and other stories from this issue in print, click here.
