Rhode Island names and other odd naming conventions

[Ari Alpert]

I grew up in RI and recall being confused by the naming convention in that part of the state (frequently called South County, which does not actually exist as an official name).

As far as I know, there is no Kingstown, RI.

URI is in Kingston (which is south of North Kingstown and east of West Kingston).
http://www.uri.edu/home/visitors/Map/kingston_direction.html


There seem to be so many odd naming conventions around here. Another one that comes to mind immediately is the section of road frequently referred to as 128 (described that way on traffic reports). Much of this stretch of road is part of I95 by exit number convention and then it suddenly becomes to 1/I93 in a different direction. I can only imagine how confusing traffic reports must be to people who move into the area (roads with odd names, counties that don't exist, etc.).

-Ari




________________________________
 From: Kevin Vahey <kvahey@gmail.com>
To: Chris Hall <chris2526@comcast.net> 
Cc: boston-radio-interest@lists.BostonRadio.org 
Sent: Friday, April 5, 2013 4:58 AM
Subject: Re: URI shooting scare
 
WJAR and WPRI did the same

It is very murky

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Railroad_Station_(Rhode_Island)



On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 1:47 AM, Chris Hall <chris2526@comcast.net> wrote:

> I have to shake my head in disbelief, both WCVB-TV and WBZ-TV reported and
> are still reporting URI as being in Kingston rather than
> Kingstown, RI.  Its astounding that two major market TV stations would
> misidentify and continue to misidentify a community 55-60 miles from Boston.
> Its not like it’s a town in Kentucky, they both had helicopters swarming
> the campus. It’s a total lack of attention to details that were once common
> place, the proper pronunciation of cities and towns and other things
> unique to New England. One would have thought that there would be  a New
> England native in both newsrooms that would have caught such an
> embarrassing error
>