The local authorities of the British region of North Yorkshire have announced that they are banning the use of the apostrophe on street signs because of digital databases and possible search problems. In English, the apostrophe before «s» indicates affiliation, and simply «s» at the end of the word — indicates plurality. not all residents liked the innovation.
The council stated that all new road signs would be made without apostrophes, regardless of previous use. Residents of the North Yorkshire resort town of Harrogate, who talked to the BBCcall on the authorities to leave the apostrophe. Moreover, someone is adding the apostrophe by hand to the new signs.
One of the disgruntled residents, former teacher Posti Sam, complains about the sign with the name of the street St Mary’s Walk: «I walk past this sign every day and my blood boils when I see the incorrect grammar or punctuation». However, now the sign has been altered by an unknown person — an apostrophe has been painted on it. Posti calls this a «genius» move.
The teacher says that she has spent a lot of her life teaching children the basics of grammar and demands that the correct spelling remains on the signs. Several other residents interviewed shared the same opinion.
Ruby Wong, who works in a Japanese restaurant in the city, doesn’t mind the change: «To be honest, since I’m not from this country, it doesn’t matter because the pronunciation is the same».
Dr. Ellie Rye, who lectures in English and linguistics at the University of York, says the apostrophe is a relatively new invention in writing:
«In writing, one might say that they can eliminate ambiguity from things that might be ambiguous, so they distinguish between two St. Marys walking down the street hand in hand and «I live on St. Mary’s Alley», but in practice these two statements are not ambiguous. If I say that I live on St. Mary’s Street, [because of the same pronunciation] we expect the name of the street or some kind of address».
North Yorkshire Council refers to the experience of other regions of the UK. Similar decisions of local authorities, as well as publications about themhave been around for many years.
The Council spokesperson added: «All punctuation will be considered but avoided wherever possible because street names and addresses, when stored in databases, must meet the standards set out in BS7666. This restricts the use of punctuation and special characters (e.g. apostrophes, hyphens and ampersands) to avoid potential problems when searching databases as these characters have a specific meaning in computer systems».