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British Airways Athletics Club: Street Name Sentence Challenge Instructions

This is a fun competitive event that can be run or walked at any time during the period specified.

The objective is for each participant to form a sentence from words collected from local street names within a given time limit - the winners being judged on the quality of the sentence. This example set constructs the sentence "Will, the Norman King of Britannia, saw the Dane, in his Viking Longboat, approach over the North Sea."

You need to start at either an entrance to your property or place of work OR the nearest street-sign to that entrance (but note that you don't have to include a word from this sign). 

The words for your sentence are to be collected during a single exercise activity. If you are running then 40 minutes is allowed. If you are walking then 60 minutes is allowed. This time, unlike previous similar challenges, you can finish at the last sign you need to get a word from.

Hint: Roads usually have their street-sign at the two ends of the road or where the road crosses a bigger road. It can be difficult, or impossible, to find a street-sign for some bigger roads! The preparation time for this event can also be used to check on Street-View where street-signs are located (but note, as in this photo, that the street furniture may have moved or been removed since the street-car visited!)

Words are collected by visiting the street name signs of local streets - the council maintained signs that identify streets, avenues, roads, paths even in some cases roundabouts but not places (such as "Welcome to Hillingdon") nor commercial signs, building names, school signs, church identifiers etc.. Bus stops are not allowed in this challenge.

Private roads may have their own name plates, not provided nor maintained by the council. They are usually distinctive in having "Private Road" also written on the name plate. They should not be submitted for this event.

Participants should get close enough to the street-sign to be able to take a photograph of it without the benefit of zoom. I'm not encouraging zigzagging across busy streets so photographs can be taken from the opposite side of the street. Photographs do not have to be submitted. If you are not taking photographs then you should tap each sign instead. A GPS trail should be submitted with your entry or a list of the streets in the order they were visited and the time and distance covered. I will allow entries that are slightly over the time limit but I will take this into account in the judging. 

No substitutions are permitted.

What "Words" can you use from the street sign?

Any sequence of letters in the name of the street (including any prefix or suffix) can be used as a word for your sentence. The example above includes the word "Over" being extracted from "Plover Way". I could of used "Lover" instead, in a different sentence. I will allow people to ignore spaces - so "Nave" could have been used from "Norman Avenue". Only one word can be used from each street name (including even if there is more than one street-sign in that street). So, for instance, I have a "Pintail Way" near me. I wouldn't be able to use "Pin" and "Tail" from this (not that I have a "Donkey Street" nearby).

How many words?

Unlimited - though to construct a good sentence I'd expect you to need between eight and twelve words. More than that might not enhance your answer.

Sentence Construction

You can collect the words in any order. You can add punctuation to your sentence. You can add small words to complete the sentence (such as "The", "of" and "His" in the example but you can expect to be penalised if you have added a significant noun. You can slightly adjust spelling, tenses and plurals but please don't overdo this.

How will the Sentence be judged?

I'll be looking for sentences that might be expected to be found in a book. This should exclude newspaper headlines, nonsense lines, lines with unnecessary adverbs, lines with lists of items (especially road names). So the following are bad examples (bold text being used for the words from the street signs):

Newspaper headline: "Will Norman close Marina bill"

Nonsense Lines: "The sprite lover approach the low bridge"

Unnecessary Adverbs: "The Long Low Norman Bridge"

Lists of Items: "My way to the Marina was Norman Crescent, Britannia Close, Dane Road and Northcote Close"

So, just to confirm, you have until the closing date to do your activity and generate a sentence from words found. Email your entry to the organiser including your activity type (run or walk), the distance covered, the time taken, the GPS map, the list of streets claimed and your sentence.  Towards the end of the period participants are encouraged to post photographs, GPS trace of their route and comments on Facebook. But it is considered unsporting to public post a good result early in the event period. Please don't reveal your sentence until the big reveal in the Monday Digest - though revealing some of the street-signs you visited might have people guessing.

Any questions? Contact the organiser: Roderick Hoffman