Three words can take you anywhere on earth
Algorithm produces unique name for every three-by-three-metre square on the planet
Chris Sheldrick, co-founder of What3Words, got frustrated trying to get bands and their equipment to the right entrances of venues, so he came up with a simple system: combining three random words to refer, precisely, to any three-by-three-metre square in the world — all 57 trillion of them. For example, the Toronto Star office at 1 Yonge St. has a few hundred names. If you want to meet at the Yonge St. entrance, it’s voting.educated.stew. The Queens Quay entrance, by comparison, is tutored.boots.powers. In between, there are dozens of other three-by-three squares with different names.
Three little words The system is available in nine languages, but all are based on the same algorithm, says Giles Rhys Jones, chief marketing officer for What3Words. The system is non-hierarchical, so that similar phrases don’t appear in close proximity. For example, admire.motivate.opinion is not right beside admire.motivate.oscar.
With a hierarchical system, says Jones, “if you make a slight mistake and hear it wrong, then you end up in the vicinity, just the wrong place.” With What3Words, a slight mistake could take you to a forest in Albania. As long as you know your meeting isn’t in Albania, the mistake will be obvious.
The algorithm decides The non-hierarchical nature and randomness of the words also means that landmarks don’t get special treatment. The Eiffel Tower, for instance, is at prices.slippery.traps, while the White House is at sulk.held.raves. Jones says it’s tempting to change the names of well-known locations, but that would go against the spirit of the project.
‘Like a horoscope’ That hasn’t stopped people from reading significance into the names. Three words are just vague enough that all sorts of meaning can be attributed to them (admire.motivate.opinon, which lands somewhere around the middle of Toronto Star building, could be the creation of an ad writer promoting the newspaper).
“There is a beauty in the words and a poetry in the words that I think people respond to on an emotional level,” says Jones. “It’s almost like a horoscope.”
Addresses for hydrants The system is picking up worldwide attention. The city of Denver now uses it to give all its fire hydrants specific addresses, while Mongolia is now switching over all its addresses to the system. The UN has used it in crisis situations, with an app that tags photos of flooding, damaged buildings or other dangers with their three-word addresses.
“We want to become a globally recognized standard for reporting location,” says Jones. “It might be that you have a traditional street address, but because of the way your street runs or (where) the entrance to your house is . . . you might include a three-word address.” Find your three-word address by typing in your street address at map.what3words.com.