Missing apostrophe
Birmingham City Council has been getting a lot of stick lately for its decision not to use apostrophes on street signs.
As a writer part of me does worry about this. It’s yet another erosion of the traditions of our language and grammar, and yet another blow to the trusty old apostrophe, the use of which baffles many people already.
But just how important is this? Fair enough, something like St Paul’s Square really should have an apostrophe because it’s called after St Paul’s Church, which is called after… St Paul. The apostrophe is there to show possession. Place names, on the other hand, tend to be less clear-cut. Kings Heath perhaps ought to have an apostrophe because it refers to the heath owned by the king (singular). But how about Druids Heath? Is that singular or plural? Where should the apostrophe go? It might well be better in that case to leave it out than get it wrong. And as for Acocks Green, is this even named for someone called Acock or does it come from a different source altogether?
As the article I link to above says, many of the apostrophes were already dying out in the 1950s so this is hardly a new phenomenon. Indeed, I have an old map of the area which shows Kings Heath spelled without the apostrophe as far back as 1880 – and many other such names around the country have either lost their apostrophes or never had them in the first place: Kings Pyon, Bishops Itchington (yes, really!), Canons Ashby.
So perhaps Birmingham council deserves a bit of slack. After all, I’d much rather see a road sign spelled Kings Heath than the sign I saw in a computer superstore this lunchtime, which read “IPOD’s”. That really did annoy me!
I love the flowers and veg.
“Carrot’s”
“lily’s”
I live in St Margaret’s Way – I’m fairly sure there’s no apostrophe… I’ll have to check….
What gets me is the variation! “Carrot’s” is followed on the same list by “Peas”, or vice versa.
I think the reason Brum hit the headlines was because of the dog’s breakfast of their signage – some have apostrophes, some don’t, even on opposite sides of the same road. *rolls eyes*
I wondered if anyone would blog about this. I noticed it too and was sure you would. I think I’d rather see what is after all a very simple grammar rule ‘taught’ well then to see the apostrophe disappear. I’m rather with you and would prefer it left out than inserted where it shouldn’t go. However, I do think the simple ‘possession’ rule is really a very basic rule and if our schools can’t even manage to teach that what does it say for the rest of the educational system.
My immediate thought and fear was that it’s all getting too lazy. If we start by omitting the apostrophe from the language, which punctuation mark will go next. Or should we just omit them all? Where will it end? Will it end? Will we lose the ability to communicate by written word unless it’s abbreviated down to a text by any chance?
U cld B rIt.
Actually I know less than nothing about text speak but it does seem to be taking over and there’s a worrying lack of understanding of these basic grammar rules wherever you go.
It’s not new, though. The local tv news ran a piece about the street signs and then showed an official letter from the 1930s as part of a different report. Someone emailed to point out that the letter-writer had used apostrophes in the wrong places – even back then when education was supposed to be so much better!