Wishlist: In vs At vs None

[wunner 0]

One thing that has always bothered me in generating narrative reports is having to choose between 'in' or 'at' as the preposition preceding a location. 'In' New York sounds fine, but not 'in' 500 State St., New York. On the other hand, 'at' 500 State St., New York, sounds fine, but not 'at' New York.

 

Couldn't there be another choice that would select either 'in' or 'at' depending on whether the Addressee and Detail place fields are empty or not? [Referring here to the US Standard Place Style] If those fields are empty, then use 'in'...if they're not empty, use 'at'.

[GenerationGoneBy 0]

Or use place styles and have the prepostition be what ever you want. That's what I do.

[MMj 0]

Or use place styles and have the prepostition be what ever you want. That's what I do.

 

Hi Teresa

 

Earlier this morning, I found myself reading your article published back in 2003 in our RUG newsletter with a great deal of interest. Even with the incredible power of the TMG sentence structure schema, I find myself constantly running afoul of prepositions that don't quite read right in a given sentence. If I set my output preposition to in, all of my locations that have numbered street addresses and most of my locations with a hospital, church, cemetery or whatever in the detail field don't read quite right. But if I set it to at, all of my locations that have just a street name with no number, and all locations with nothing in the detail field don't read quite right. And if I set it to blank, then I have to control every preposition in every sentence myself.

 

So I was quite fascinated by your article on custom place styles, because it seems like a real solution to a small but nagging problem. But I would like to ask a couple of questions about this process before I start down the path, because there are places where it seems like a slippery slope. And I want to make sure I don't create a lot of problems for myself down the road.

 

I didn't see it mentioned anywhere in your article (although I might have just missed it), but am I correct in my assumption that if I start using custom place styles, I will then have to go to the report options for each of my narrative reports and set the place preposition to blank, so that I don't end up with sentences like "Bob Jones was born in at 1234 Main Street, located in Frederick Co., Maryland"?

 

But if that first assumption is correct, Then once I have created and used my first custom place style, perhaps in a birth tag for my grandmother (or wherever), will I then have to create and use custom place styles in all of my other tags for all of the people in my database because, having set my preposition control to blank in my report options?

 

And if that is the case, should I create a custom place style that looks much like the default U.S. Standard Place Style, but includes in as it's preposition and use John Cardinal's TMG Utility to change the place style in all of my tags from the standard style to the custom one? This is so that I won't end up with thousands of preposition-less narrative sentences while I am in the process of creating and implementing the necessary custom styles. At the present moment, every tag in my database uses the U.S. Standard Place Style. My database is what I would call "fledgling", with only about 2,300 people in it. In the majority of cases, I currently know only a part of the location in each tag. I usually know the state, quite often the county, sometimes the city and once in a while the street address. I do frequently know the names of cemeteries, churches and hospitals. So right now, in works better for me than at.

 

Any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Mike

[GenerationGoneBy 0]

Glad you liked the article.

 

Yes, set the place preposition in the reports to blank.

Place styles are attached to places. YOu will attach them to the places first in the Master Place List. Now lets say that you have a tag like burial where MOST of the time you are going to use a cemetery, so you are going to want that tag MOST of the time to use the cemetery place style. Go to the MASTER TAG TYPE LIST, and in the burial tag, you can select the place style you want TMG to use MOST of the time. You can always change it on any one tag.

 

Yes, I would definitely create a new IN place style for use with most places and if fact, I call mine CHEASA's Place style (my nickname in High School was Cheasa ) THen use the utitlity to change those first. Then you can use the utility to speed up the place changing process too. Say you want all cemeteries to use the new cemetery place style. Have the utility fitler places with the word "cemetery" and change those to the cemetery style. Have it search for the word "hospital" and change those to the hospital style, etc.

 

On my website is a list of placestyles that I commonly use and you can just copy and paste those.

 

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~r...placestyles.htm

 

It won't take you as long as you think to implement this and reports are much better to read once you do and no more playing with prepositions.

 

If you have any more questions, just ask. That's what I am here for. <G>

[MMj 0]

I got the list of placestyles that you sent me and have begun implementing them. Thanks again.

[wunner 0]

One thing that has always bothered me in generating narrative reports is having to choose between 'in' or 'at' as the preposition preceding a location. 'In' New York sounds fine, but not 'in' 500 State St., New York. On the other hand, 'at' 500 State St., New York, sounds fine, but not 'at' New York.

 

Couldn't there be another choice that would select either 'in' or 'at' depending on whether the Addressee and Detail place fields are empty or not? [Referring here to the US Standard Place Style] If those fields are empty, then use 'in'...if they're not empty, use 'at'.

 

I think some may have missed the point in my original suggestion that TMG use our entered data to determine whether "in" or "at" is the more appropriate preposition for place names. Obviously TMG is very flexible in providing users with the ability to customize almost anything, but shouldn't we expect that basic functions would be an integral part of the program?

 

We all have to live with the in/at issue in almost every report, and as TMG is now structured we must make a universal decision whether to use either "in" or "at." Of course we could create custom place styles as has been suggested, but I suspect that most TMG users will rarely customize anything and will run the program as is. So why couldn't this in/at decision be made by TMG based on place data contents to make it more satisfactory for everyone?

 

John

[GenerationGoneBy 0]

John,

 

How would you suggest that TMG do that? HOw would it know you want In New York where I would rather in At New York or Near New York. You'd have to tell it on a place by place bases, and that is what the place styles were created to do.

[wunner 0]

John,

 

How would you suggest that TMG do that? HOw would it know you want In New York where I would rather in At New York or Near New York. You'd have to tell it on a place by place bases, and that is what the place styles were created to do.

 

Hi Teresa,

 

Your point is valid, but you are talking about exceptions. For most BMD events it's unlikely that you would want to say "He was born from New York" or "He was married near St. Mark's Church." When you do have exceptions, that's where the flexibility of TMG comes into play. But for most events (as I suggested in my original posting) TMG could be structured to make a better in/at decision than universally one or the other by selecting either 'in' or 'at' depending on whether the Addressee and Detail place fields are empty or not. If those fields are empty, then use 'in'...if they're not empty, use 'at'. That would be a lot more straightforward and would minimize the need for custom place styles just to get most narrative sentences to read correctly.

 

John

[GenerationGoneBy 0]

There are many ways a user can get this:

 

Custom Place styles.

Add the prepostion to the place name as in: at St. Mark's Church

Change the sentence as in: [P] was married <at [L]>

 

I would much rather set the place prepostion myself so that I get exactly what I want than to have the program select it. As you can see, when using computer generated text, sometimes you just have to customize it to get what you want.

But there are already several ways for you to consistently get what you want now.

I understand you want to use TMG right out of the box, without customization. But when you start looking for it to do something differently than out of the box, you have to look at the ways it is set up to customize for you to get what you want.

[MMj 0]

But for most events (as I suggested in my original posting) TMG could be structured to make a better in/at decision than universally one or the other by selecting either 'in' or 'at' depending on whether the Addressee and Detail place fields are empty or not. If those fields are empty, then use 'in'...if they're not empty, use 'at'. That would be a lot more straightforward and would minimize the need for custom place styles just to get most narrative sentences to read correctly.

 

Hi John,

I could agree with you up to a point, because in the absence of Detail and City information, I can scarcely imagine a time when I would use anything other than "in" as the preposition. And I have a great many tags where I do know only the City and/or County and/or State. But I also have a large number of tags where I do have information in the Detail and/or City fields. And I fail to see how TMG could do any better job of handling them than it does now. I have a lot of tags that shows street number in the Detail field, but I probably have an equal number that show only the street without the number. In the first instance I would say "He lived at 1234 Main Street." But in the second instance I would say "He lived on Main Street." Many people place hospital or church (or whatever) names in the Detail field, and when that is the case, the correct preposition to use would be anybody's guess.

 

So on the whole I have to agree with Teresa. I have taken over control of the preposition syntax myself because otherwise I finding that I am constantly having to create custom sentences within the tag.

 

Mike