I snipped the above headline from the BBC News website. Many people have been outraged by this move.
In the town of Harrogate a new street sign indicates that St Mary's Walk should now be known as St Marys Walk. I am rather pleased that an anonymous local resident cared enough to use a permanent black marker to insert an apostrophe between the "y" and the "s" on the new sign. I would have done the same if I lived nearby.
As an English teacher, I regularly explained the use of the apostrophe and its significance in clarifying meaning. I also used a lot of red ink to reinforce that point when marking my pupils' work. What are young people meant to think about apostrophes when they see their own local council ditching them from street signage?
I copied and pasted the following from the BBC report:-
North Yorkshire Council said it "along with many others across the country" had opted to "eliminate" the apostrophe from street signs.
A spokesperson added: "All punctuation will be considered but avoided where possible because street names and addresses, when stored in databases, must meet the standards set out in BS7666.
"This restricts the use of punctuation marks and special characters (e.g. apostrophes, hyphens and ampersands) to avoid potential problems when searching the databases as these characters have specific meanings in computer systems."
What does the BS in BS7666 stand for? I can only imagine that it is Bullshit! I get the idea that on computer spreadsheets etcetera, apostrophes could cause certain problems but so what? That does not seem to be a good reason for eliminating apostrophes from the street signs themselves.
Down in London stands one of this countries greatest cathedrals - St. Paul's Cathedral. It is dedicated to St. Paul - the famous apostle. There's a sense in which the cathedral belongs to him so it's definitely St. Paul's Cathedral and not the lazy version - St. Pauls Cathedral which perhaps wrongly suggests that there are lots of Saint Pauls! Maybe North Yorkshire Council would like to refer The Church of England to "the standards set out in BS7666" which was most certainly created by a bureaucratic moron.
Computers are meant to be our servants and not our masters. Before too long, are North Yorkshire Council going to eliminate apostrophes from all written communications?
from Yorkshire Pudding https://ift.tt/qn0HLYh