Saturday 29 November 2014

Goofy Points

I spent a few days in Frankfurt last week and had zero opportunity for any geo explorations.  However, never one to miss a moment, as we got out the cab at Frankfurt Airport for our journey home I spotted this. A Verm Punkt.
14 11 22_24 Germany (11)
I was with two other chartered surveyors.  The quantity surveyor thought I was nuts to be photographing the pavement, but the geomatics surveyor thought it perfectly normal and to be totally expected in the circumstances.

I had been expecting to find a Mess Punkt, as I had previously in Cologne and Copenhagen.
14 10 31 Mess Punkt
On translation Verm came out as "goofing".  Not quite what I was expecting and certainly not what geomatics surveyors do ;-)

However if you translate "verm punkt" you find out that Verm Punkt is actually a contraction of Vermessungspunkt, a measuring point.  And now I've researched a bit more I've realised that "mess punkt" is short for messungspunkt. Which presumably is a contraction of vermessungspunkt.  One word two contractions.  The wonderful world of the German language eh?

1 comment:

Kevin Nehring, PLS said...

"Goofing" seems fairly appropriate, at least to those who don't know why we're taking pictures of the ground. I get it; I'm a surveyor though (geomatics, not quantity).

Early in my marriage, my Wife thought it was goofy that I was always looking at the ground for marks, but it's something she has come to accept, along with my Benchmark Hunting activities (similar to your Trig Spotting), and the 1000s of pictures I've taken of the survey monuments I've "found". Had I been with you, your Quantity Surveyor colleague would have thought we were both goofy as I would have been next to you, taking pictures of the Verm Punkt as well.