Its a catastrophe for the apostrophe in Britain

[marmar]

AP via Yahoo!:



Its a catastrophe for the apostrophe in Britain
By MEERA SELVA, Associated Press Writer


LONDON – On the streets of Birmingham, the queen's English is now the queens English.

England's second-largest city has decided to drop apostrophes from all its street signs, saying they're confusing and old-fashioned.

But some purists are downright possessive about the punctuation mark.

It seems that Birmingham officials have been taking a hammer to grammar for years, quietly dropping apostrophes from street signs since the 1950s. Through the decades, residents have frequently launched spirited campaigns to restore the missing punctuation to signs denoting such places as "St. Pauls Square" or "Acocks Green."

This week, the council made it official, saying it was banning the punctuation mark from signs in a bid to end the dispute once and for all.

Councilor Martin Mullaney, who heads the city's transport scrutiny committee, said he decided to act after yet another interminable debate into whether "Kings Heath," a Birmingham suburb, should be rewritten with an apostrophe.

"I had to make a final decision on this," he said Friday. "We keep debating apostrophes in meetings and we have other things to do." .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090131/ap_on_re_eu/eu_britain_no_apostrophe

[Critters2]

1. That's just bizarre. nt

[Lex]

12. you mean: Thats just bizarre.

:shrug:

[Critters2]

13. Yeah. Thats what I meant. LOL! nt

[xchrom]

2. disgusting -- this queen want to see signs in the fuckin queen's english. nt

i'm so mad about this -- i mispelled..

[Lasher]

3. This wont please the apostrophe police around here.

This isnt a good idea.

[supernova]

4. Considering that we mix them up here

it's just a matter of time.

Things that should have an apostrophe don't

Things that don't have an apostrophe do.

:eyes:

It's enough to drive an English Major around the bend. :crazy: x(

[Lex]

14. But I find much amusement in it.

It's true, I do!

[pipi_k]

25. I know...it's a big source of amusement for me, personally...

To see signs advertising stuff like "Fish and chip's"

"Ham and egg's"



Even funnier are the misplaced quotation marks...


"Cash" only please

"Chicken" breasts - 2 lbs/$5.00


:7

[asjr]

5. It certainly will screw up the UK's elementary

school children.

[LisaL]

6. Hah. Wouldn't that be UKs elementary school children?

LOL.

[asjr]

8. Darn, I meant to do that.

[Catshrink]

7. Holy apostrophe apostasy, Batman!

This is stupid. Just another example of dumbing down the language. Isn't Britain's major industry tourism? People go to see old England the the Queen's English. Save the apostrophe!

[TheDebbieDee]

9. So, stop using apostrophe's because some people cant'

figure out how to us'e them? Brilliant!

:sarcasm:

[NV Whino]

10. This appears to be the possessive use

of the apostrophe on signage. As a graphic designer who has had to deal with this sort of thing, I can't say I disagree with dropping the apostrophe for signage.

[VPStoltz]

15. How does that have anything to do with "signage?"

Either it's spelled correctly or it isn't.
And here I thought it was only Americans who couldn't figure its proper usage.

[NV Whino]

16. It's hell to design signage with apostrophes

And I do believe that is what this is all about.

Perhaps I'm not understanding the situation.

[JackRiddler]

18. Maybe for plural possessive - i.e., the workers movement.

[20score]

11. Its terrible it is. Ive been saying this for month's. Now, as to Britains punctuation mark's.

[JackRiddler]

17. As opposed to the apostrophe proliferation we have in the US, where...

it now means, "here comes an s!"

Ive been objecting for year's!

[Lex]

19. LOL!

I love it -- "here comes an s!" So true.

:rofl:

[JackRiddler]

24. stole it, of course.

But isn't that true of most everything, from one-liners to Shakspere himself?

[Peace Patriot]

20. You gotta laugh at those defending "the Queen's English." During THE most vibrant

period in the development of the English language--the rule of Queen Elizabeth I--there were NO rules for the written word--no dictionaries, no grammaries, no punctuation police, nada (William Shakespeare spelled his own name six different ways)--and the ruling rule for the spoken word was: "BE INVENTIVE."

It is only later that English became schoolmarmish and, well, precise (--although you gotta hand it to Mr. Shakspar for being as precise as he was with a wildly inventive language).

Anyhoo, the problem with "Queens Road" is that it creates ambiguity about the number of Queens of England at any one time. It also creates a bit of ambiguity about what kind of "queens" you mean, exactly. Is the road down the way a gay enclave? Or is it a road honoring the ruling monarch?

That is my objection to this new sloppiness about the apostrophe in England. But, hey, they invented this mindbogglingly inconsistent, irrational, difficult to larn, at times beautiful beyond words, at times uglier than Bushites, form of thought, and spread it all over the goddamned world, so I guess we who claim to speak it with no allegiance to the Queen owe them the benefit of the doubt, if they want to throw out one of late-appearing rules.

It may be the end of western civilization, though, if you combine it with a few other things that are happening. Could explain the mindfuck involved in the misuse of the word "bailout" and the phrase "war on terror." It might all be traceable back to the English mixing up of "Queen's" and "queens." If they can't keep their apostrophes together, how can the plebes, peons, wage slaves and cannon fodder of the English-speaking world be expected to keep it all going?

[SalmonChantedEvening]

21. Apoplexapostrophe

Doodah doodah

[HamdenRice]

22. It is kinda dumb. The apostrophe represents a dropped letter in the Dutch word, "se"

It is very archaic. A long time ago, I used to read a dialect of Dutch spoken in South Africa called Afrikaans.

English developed from a number of languages in including a dialect that became both early English and Dutch.

IIRC, to make a possessive, you add the word "se". So the "Queen's English" originally was written "Queen se English."

Like apostrophes in words like "can't", the apostrophe in possessives shows that two words have been combined and a letter has been dropped.

In the same way that "do not" is written "don't",
"Queen se English" came to be said more quickly as "Queen's English" and the apostrophe showed the words were combined and the letter e dropped.

To still use it today seems silly since no one really knows or remembers the word "se" anymore anyway.

[surrealAmerican]

26. ... except it's not silly because it is the only way to ...

... differentiate a plural from a possessive. Apostrophes actually make the meaning clear.

[rug]

23. First they came for the commas . . . .