Several professors, headed by project leader Daniel Oto-Peralías at Universidad Pablo de Olavide in Spain, have created a new app that they claim will help identify “offensive” and “harmful” street names and “repair past wrongs.”

The STNAMES LAB app was described by Oto-Peralías and fellow geography professors Derek Alderman of the University of Tennessee and Joshua Inwood of Penn State University as an “important education tool” in a recent article at The Conversation.

The intrepid professors wrote that the app:

will help communities understand how discriminatory beliefs are woven into everyday spaces and the harm caused by offensive names.

They added:

We believe the app will help people see the changes necessary to recognize and repair past wrongs in street naming.

Users of the app can search for offensive street names in North America and Western Europe -- and even get their exact locations. (Perhaps in case they want to “cancel” any street signs that sport names that offend them personally.)  

For example, the professors noted that they found hundreds of street names containing the obviously harmful words “savage” and “squaw.” “Savage” is, well, kinda mean sounding, but it's also a common last name, and squaw is supposedly a derogatory term directed at female Native Americans … though everyone I’ve ever met believes it simply means a female Native American. (Not that it should matter. We can no longer even say what a “female” is, anyway. We are incessantly told that it certainly has nothing to do with a person’s genitalia.)

What street name wouldn’t be offensive to someone determined to be offended? Countless streets are named for a person. In these cases, the offendee(s) are going to feign “harm” if the person the street was named after ever thought, said, or did anything with which the offendee disagreed, no matter how minutely or far back in the past it may have been.

Nearly every smaller town has a “Main Street.” This seems insulting and non-inclusive. What about all the other streets -- of various types? Why are they relegated to lesser status?

How about “Broad” Street?! Talk about offensive! And misogynistic! Or “Church” Street! Are atheists just supposed to put up with this demeaning and harmful designation?

 Some types of streets appear to me to be offensive, as well. “Thoroughfare” and “drive,” for example. The former categorization may well be offensive to those who aren’t particularly thorough, while the latter is patently offensive to those who happen to lack determination.

Whatever.

Personally, I don’t look to street names whenever I have an overwhelming urge to be offended. I just turn on the “news” -- or read an article by or about professors. Works every time. But maybe that’s just me.

Image: Picryl // public domain