Earlier quoted context omitted.
Such a strict interpretation would also exclude spaces.
at least over there something would probably "isle of pen" rather than "pen island"
S'cunt'horpe
North Yorkshire Council to phase out apostrophe use on street signs
171–180 of 233 posts
Re: North Yorkshire Council to phase out apostrophe use on street signs
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or, my personal gripe, ISO 7816 - your everyday smartcard standard. A full copy sets you back > 2k €. [1] https://www.vde-verlag.de/iec-normen/suchen/?publikationsnum...
Also on Anna's Archive: https://annas-archive.org/md5/7957d8af6f296b3adaafd5c21d4aa3...
That's just Part 4 (and 13 is available there as well). The rest remains hidden, sadly - I assume that there aren't that many people willing to get Aaron Swartz'd.
Re: North Yorkshire Council to phase out apostrophe use on street signs
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
And my father-in-law is still upset about it. It's led to some interesting outcomes - for example, I've seen people write "Princess Highway" a fair few times, presumably on account of the official spelling ("Princes") falling confusingly somewhere half-way between the more usual "Prince's" and "Princess". In day to day use, I don't think most people actually use the apostrophe-free official spellings, at least for na…
I have never seen anyone write "Prince's Hwy" (or "King's Hwy" for that matter), the apostrophe-free version would be far more common. The "Princess Hwy" thing is also common I think because the pronunciation most often used sounds a lot like "Princess", particularly when it's run right into "Highway" without a gap.
> I have never seen anyone write "Prince's Hwy" (or "King's Hwy" for that matter), the apostrophe-free version would be far more common.
I don't know what to tell you; I've seen it often. I'm talking day to day here, text messages and handwritten directions. If you're thinking of things like road signs, those will obviously follow official usage.
> The "Princess Hwy" thing is also common I think because the pronunciation most often used sounds a lot like "Princess", particularly when it's run right into "Highway" without a gap.
Obviously that is so, but I would suggest that the reason 'Princess Hwy' is comparatively so much more common than other similar mistakes (e.g. 'sea' for 'see' etc.) is because the official name (Princes Highway) feels so unnatural in English that it fails to act as a meaningful standard for usage.
Re: North Yorkshire Council to phase out apostrophe use on street signs
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interestingly, the OpenStreetMap project considers road signage to be unquestionable "ground truth". If the sign changes, the map changes. We can't use any other database because that might not be available under a compatible licence.
I haven’t checked but how do they handle streets if the signs have two different spellings? There was a street growing up that was spelled two different ways and I still don’t know what the right one was!
Naming is complicated. OSM community invented approaches to capture lots of nuances.
Re: North Yorkshire Council to phase out apostrophe use on street signs
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
I haven’t checked but how do they handle streets if the signs have two different spellings? There was a street growing up that was spelled two different ways and I still don’t know what the right one was!
My favourite example is a small road in Killarney called The Hahah in English but in Irish written "An Fhaiche" in one place and "An Háhá" in another. OpeStreetMap seems to designate the first one as name:ga and the second one as alt_name:ga.
This tagging is most likely the result of a single OSM editor decision. They are quite often wrong / suboptimal / do not conform to guidelines.
It is always better to consult extensive OSM wiki to figure out how something should be tagged rather than try to figure out based on existing examples.
In case of names here is relevant guide: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Names
Re: North Yorkshire Council to phase out apostrophe use on street signs
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
I haven’t checked but how do they handle streets if the signs have two different spellings? There was a street growing up that was spelled two different ways and I still don’t know what the right one was!
My favourite example is a small road in Killarney called The Hahah in English but in Irish written "An Fhaiche" in one place and "An Háhá" in another. OpeStreetMap seems to designate the first one as name:ga and the second one as alt_name:ga.
This is a recurring problem in Ireland due to nationwide local government incompetence in using the Irish language.
Centuries old Irish language place names get replaced with bastard gaelicised versions of their English names, and now you’ve a mishmash of signage all over the place. Often the new names are just an invention of the council that sort of sounds right.
Re: North Yorkshire Council to phase out apostrophe use on street signs
#177You 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.
Interestingly, the OpenStreetMap project considers road signage to be unquestionable "ground truth". If the sign changes, the map changes. We can't use any other database because that might not be available under a compatible licence.
Don't know if it is still an issue but Atlanta used to have problems with the in-house sign shop producing street signs with misspelled names. Apparently, boulevard in particular was difficult for the city to get correct which was a problem since there's a major road simply named "Boulevard". Maybe it got corrected after one of the local news channels did a segment about it but does highlight the fact that road signs sometimes aren't authoritative.
Re: North Yorkshire Council to phase out apostrophe use on street signs
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
This is not true. We don't apply this "rule" to any other establishment, e.g. people don't say "I'm going to Burger King's" or "I'm going to Costa's". There's nothing to analyze: "Tesco's" is just wrong . It's not the name of the business.
Interesting observation ! Might it be because Tesco and Costa resemble ordinary names, and therefore easily appear in a possessive form ?
Or it might be about imaginary hierarchy. There could only be one actual duly-anointed king of burgers, but if one were to use the definite article to mark this, saying "I am going to the Burger King's", it would imply firstly that the king of burgers does actually exist, and possibly also secondly that he has but one solitary burger outlet.
A grammatical construction not quite so jarring when used with (say) "Tesco".
Re: North Yorkshire Council to phase out apostrophe use on street signs
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
people don't say "I'm going to Burger King's" or "I'm going to Costa's" Oh yes they do! There's nothing to analyze: "Tesco's" is just wrong. It’s kind of funny that there are prescriptivists on both sides here, all convinced that they’re right.
In 40 years I have no seen such usage in print
People say it.
Re: North Yorkshire Council to phase out apostrophe use on street signs
#180We cannot (competently) make computers work like we want them to, so let's change our lives to adapt to computers instead.