Apostrophe news

Last week the city council of Birmingham, England's second largest city, decided to drop apostrophes from all local street signs. Henceforth it shall be "St Pauls Square," "Druids Heath," "Acocks Green," and so forth. The British papers and the Associated Press have expressed outrage, ridicule, or at least amusement. (I hope the lack of an apostrophe in the AP's headline, "Its a catastrophe for the apostrophe," is meant as a little joke.)

I haven't seen anyone point out, though, that the entire United States has followed the same policy for many years. From the U.S. Board on Geographic Names'  "Principles, Policies, and Procedures" governing domestic place names: 

Apostrophes suggesting possession or association are not to be used within the body of a proper geographic name (Henrys Fork: not Henry's Fork). 

Why is that?

The word or words that form a geographic name change their connotative function and together become a single denotative unit. They change from words having specific dictionary meaning to fixed labels used to refer to geographic entities. The need to imply possession or association no longer exists.

Say what? We aren't supposed to associate Henry (whoever he is) with his Fork (wherever that is)? Then why was it named after Henry? For that matter, if the words in place names lose their "dictionary meaning" and become "fixed labels," why are we bothering to call Henrys Fork "Fork" instead of "Henrys Mountain" or "Henrys Axolotl"? That rationale is a thoroughly silly one masquerading as linguistic science.

I can imagine banishing apostrophes from signs because they look like fly specks. I can imagine doing so for the reason that Martin Mullaney, of the Birmingham city council, gave, saying, "I had to make a final decision on this. We keep debating apostrophes in meetings and we have other things to do." What I wish I could imagine and can't, though, is that we'll put back all the apostrophes in names like "St. Paul's Square" and "Henry's Fork" that the normal rules of English call for. 

Comments

The dumbing down of the English language--and those who speak it--continues. It's a vicious cycle, with no end in sight.

Posted by Claudius | February 2, 2009 10:07 AM

Bookshops in the UK have been dropping apostrophes for decades - Foyles and Dillons, for instance, founded respectively by a pair of Foyles and a single Dillon. Waterstone's keeps its. And other companies too lost theirs - Barclays, Harrods, Currys, Selfridges. Boots. Woolworths. Personally I think they look better without apostrophes.

John Richards, founder and chairman of the Apostrophe Protection Society, is quoted in the article linked to above, complaining. I wonder if "Richards" was originally "Richard's", as in "Richard's son", and the apostrophe in his name was lost in time? Ironic if so.

One reason given by Birmingham for dropping of apos from placenames is the situation with digital databases, say for ambulances - you wouldn't want to be late to hospital because someone couldn't find your location in King's Cross as opposed to Kings Cross. If that seems a bit daft, remember that apostrophes have been dropped from email addresses and websites with no fuss I can recall, along with capitalisation - including waterstones.com

Posted by Nicholas Waller | February 2, 2009 10:40 AM

Mrs. Wallraff,

I'm not sure but I think this convention regarding place names has been around for a while. I'm not sure but I think the convention may be as old as Lewis and Clark. The Marias River in Northern Montana was named for the Cousin of Meriwether Lewis Maria Wood. As such it should properly be called Maria's river. However the convention has been Marias for a long time. I'm not sure how long but I hope this helps.

Posted by Sornq | February 4, 2009 10:11 PM

Thanks a bunch for contributing to the "dumbing down" of grammar in general. It isn't enough that the average ignorant moron (editors in particular) are trying to create new styles of syntax, randomly jamming together two words together to make one, putting periods outside quotation marks, dropping capitalization, and generally being "creative" with grammar. If apostrophes are confusing to your people, EDUCATE YOUR PEOPLE!

Posted by John Endsley | February 4, 2009 10:45 PM

There are five exceptions to the US rule that you mention, the best known being Martha's Vineyard:

http://geonames.usgs.gov/domestic/faqs.htm#18

Posted by DaveMB | February 5, 2009 5:29 PM

Medical conditions have been going this way for a while as well. Down's syndrome is becoming Downs syndrome, and so forth.

Posted by webgrandma | February 9, 2009 3:54 PM

I've done a follow up article to this issue called 'In Search of the Birmingham Apostrophe'

See http://martinmullaney.blogspot.com/2009/02/in-search-of-birmingham-apostrophe-in.html

I'm just glad I never mentioned that the road signs incorrectly used the abbreviation dot after St (Saint) and Rd (Road)

Posted by martin mullaney | February 28, 2009 3:46 PM