Apostrophe Ban

Good for Birmingham City Council!

I find it extraordinary that apostrophes stir up so much emotion.  I am known to some people as the apostrophe lady, but then that's my job.  To my knowledge, at least three papers yesterday picked up and published the story that Birmingham City Council is fed up with people wanting to change King's Road to Kings Road and back again, so it has decided to make a clear decision to leave all apostrophes out of its signage from now onwards.

Shock horror! Bad example to children!  Dumbing down! To read some comments, you would think we had agreed to phonetic spelling in school text books.

In my opinion this is a good example of practical common sense.  It will save  money and confuse nobody.  Much better to have no apostrophes than to have them in the wrong places - and not only on street signs.

Comments

• Good Day. Depend not on another, but lean instead on thyself...True happiness is born of self-reliance.
  I am from Montenegro and learning to write in English, give true I wrote the following sentence: “International travel - all passengers regardless of age must have their own airline ticket.”

  With love 8), Patty.

  By Patty on 2009 03 21

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  By Kaveri on 2009 03 22

• While I think that perhaps the only purpose of an apostrophe in a street name would be to be historically correct, I do think there are occasions when they are essential to the meaning of a sentence. Droppign them would be a retrograde step, and allowing the dumbing down of teaching English. It’s only within the last 20 years that this ignorance has blossomed.

  By Gillian Bond on 2009 05 26

• This is appalling. It makes me feel quite depressed.

  By Cathy Swift on 2009 06 19

• Hi Jane.  All very clear and user friendly.  I am just sending you a message to see what happens!

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