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North Yorkshire Council to phase out apostrophe use on street signs

bbc.co.uk

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Re: North Yorkshire Council to phase out apostrophe use on street signs

#101

Post by colloydi »

devsda wrote: post #92
graypegg wrote: post #80

As far as I can tell, this isn't an issue with the specific database itself, but the standard they are required to record geographic data in, which the end of the article mentions as "BS 7666". https://www.agi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/BS7666Guid... # Standard data types used in BS 7666 CharacterString: a sequence of alphanumeric characters ... If I had to guess, alphanumeric is interpreted as [0-9a-z]. The s…

BS in "BS 7666" stands for British Standard and not anything else. If the standard restricts street names to those certain characters, may be it really is BS .

The '666' portion doesn't inspire confidence either.

We love apostrophes so much we have them on our supermarkets. If they're not there we add them.

e.g. I'm going to Sainbury's

e.g. I'm going to Tesco's

...despite the fact that it's real name is plain old Tesco.

Re: North Yorkshire Council to phase out apostrophe use on street signs

#103

Post by Stratoscope »

iraqmtpizza wrote: post #32
MarcScott wrote: post #25

I have a street in a town near me which grammatically should be called St. Thomas' road. However, the street signs call it St. Thomas road at the north end and St. Thomas's road at the south end.

Thomas' is not grammatically correct in any version of English that I know. It's not plural. There is no special rule for that. Both the street signs you mentioned are at least grammatically coherent

I do like Thomas'® English Muffins though.

Re: North Yorkshire Council to phase out apostrophe use on street signs

#104

Post by swores »

colloydi wrote: post #101
devsda wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BS in "BS 7666" stands for British Standard and not anything else. If the standard restricts street names to those certain characters, may be it really is BS .

The '666' portion doesn't inspire confidence either. We love apostrophes so much we have them on our supermarkets. If they're not there we add them. e.g. I'm going to Sainbury's e.g. I'm going to Tesco's ...despite the fact that it's real name is plain old Tesco.

That's because you're not going to Tesco the registered company, you're going to (one of) Tesco's (shops). It's just traditional and logical grammar, not misnaming.

Re: North Yorkshire Council to phase out apostrophe use on street signs

#105

Post by swores »

iraqmtpizza wrote: post #40
oarsinsync wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When a word ends with an s, the use of an apostrophe without another s is valid English. Thomas’ and Thomas’s are the same thing.

lol no. arguably the word ain't is more proper English than Chris' or boss'

Being confident doesn't change the fact that you're misinformed about English grammar.

Re: North Yorkshire Council to phase out apostrophe use on street signs

#107

Post by Turing_Machine »

Strang wrote: post #61
Turing_Machine wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's not even accepted colloquially in spoken English How the hell would you hear the apostrophe in "spoken English"?

That's exactly his point. You don't hear the apostrophe but you do hear the "s," meaning that Thomas and Thomas' cannot be distinguished. And so Thomas's must be used instead.

As the OP said, "Thomas'" is pronounced "Thomases".

"Thomas's" means "belongs to Thomas". Pronounced the same, but spelled differently, because it is a different word.

Re: North Yorkshire Council to phase out apostrophe use on street signs

#108

Post by bmitc »

calibas wrote: post #65

You can print apostrophes on a street sign without any database issues because a street sign doesn't interface directly with a database. At least not yet... All the technical issues here have already been solved a hundred times, there's plenty of other options. It's a little worrying that we're eliminating punctuation in real life because of issues with integrating with geographical databases.

It seems like it is yet another example of software not written to requirements so now the requirements are adjusted to fit the software implementation.

Re: North Yorkshire Council to phase out apostrophe use on street signs

#109

Post by vundercind »

filmor wrote: post #62
dark-star wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My keyboard has at least 3 already: ` ´ and ' ... I guess there are lots more in other languages...

The first two are accents, and to me it always looks extremely unprofessional when they are abused as apostrophes.

Right single quote is not less-correct than the neutral character.

Re: North Yorkshire Council to phase out apostrophe use on street signs

#110

Post by vundercind »

iraqmtpizza wrote: post #40
oarsinsync wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When a word ends with an s, the use of an apostrophe without another s is valid English. Thomas’ and Thomas’s are the same thing.

lol no. arguably the word ain't is more proper English than Chris' or boss'

You pronounce both of your examples with two S phonemes at the end. Putting that in the written form is absolutely Ok.
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