The apostrophe is being banned from street names in parts of Devon to “avoid potential confusion”.
Mid Devon District Council said its new streets had not contained apostrophes for many years, but the policy was now being made official.
It said apostrophes could only be found in three street names in the district.
It added that Beck’s Square and Blundell’s Avenue, both in Tiverton, and St George’s Well in Cullompton, were “all named many, many years ago”.
Andrew Lacey, from the council, said there was “no national guidance that stops apostrophes being used”.
But proofreader Mary de Vere Taylor from Ashburton said the thought of apostrophes being removed made her “shudder”.
“It’s almost as though somebody with a giant eraser is literally trying to erase punctuation from our consciousness,” she told BBC News. More.
See: BBC
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Local time: 04:30
English to Dutch
Darnit, I can't find the original article where I read about this. But what actually happened wasn't that they were just going to leave out apostrophes. The idea was to avoid giving new streets names that needed them in the first place.
Denmark
Local time: 04:30
Member (2003)
Danish to English
+ ...
in the old days i believe they alsowrotethewordstogetherwithoutspaces but i think the spaces at least were an improvement
my mother sometimes maintained that if stone age people were able to survive at all then they must have been much more intelligent than we were in the 20th century and the human race has been degenerating ever since
so now we have reache... See more
in the old days i believe they alsowrotethewordstogetherwithoutspaces but i think the spaces at least were an improvement
my mother sometimes maintained that if stone age people were able to survive at all then they must have been much more intelligent than we were in the 20th century and the human race has been degenerating ever since
so now we have reached the point where even apostrophes are too difficult for some people
she would have chortled over this story ▲ Collapse
United Kingdom
Local time: 03:30
Portuguese to English
+ ...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-21835017
Netherlands
Local time: 04:30
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-21835017
If "Baker View" has no apostrophe, why are people so angry when "Bakers View" doesn't have one either?
Spain
Local time: 04:30
Spanish to English
+ ...
If "Baker View" has no apostrophe, why are people so angry when "Bakers View" doesn't have one either?
Because thanks to careful grooming by publications such as the Daily Mail a large section of the population are in a permanent state of hair-trigger apoplexy, ready to explode at the the slightest sign of what they perceive as further degeneration of society.
[Edited at 2013-03-21 08:30 GMT]
United Kingdom
Local time: 03:30
Member (2008)
Italian to English
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-21835017
If "Baker View" has no apostrophe, why are people so angry when "Bakers View" doesn't have one either?
Bakers only view when they're watching TV.
Local time: 03:30
German to English
in the old days i believe they alsowrotethewordstogetherwithoutspaces but i think the spaces at least were an improvement
Hey, they are still doing that in Germany... smiles
Steve K.
Italy
Local time: 04:30
Italian to English
in the old days i believe they alsowrotethewordstogetherwithoutspaces but i think the spaces at least were an improvement
WORSETHANTHATCHRISTINESOMEANCIENTPEOPLES
CNIETIRWOTDESUSKEERGEHTDNASETITTIHEHTEKIL
APITALSWITHNOSPACESLEFTTORIGHTANDTHENRIGH
NOITAUTCNUPONHTIWSENILETANRETLANOTFELOTT
[Edited at 2013-03-22 15:16 GMT]
Denmark
Local time: 04:30
Member (2003)
Danish to English
+ ...
in the old days i believe they alsowrotethewordstogetherwithoutspaces but i think the spaces at least were an improvement
WORSETHANTHATCHRISTINESOMEANCIENTPEOPLES
CNIETIRWOTDESUSKEERGEHTDNASETITTIHEHTEKIL
APITALSWITHNOSPACESLEFTTORIGHTANDTHENRIGH
NOITAUTCNUPONHTIWSENILETANRETLANOTFELOTT
[Edited at 2013-03-22 15:16 GMT]
I know, and
some clients are revertingtoit whenthey convertfromPDFs sothey canreduce the wordcount and keepthe ratedown.
Canada
Local time: 22:30
English
+ ...
The article ends with the comment “However, it declined to comment further and did not elaborate on who might be confused by the use of correct punctuation.”
This, of course, is asking the wrong question. It is not a who, but a what, that is being confused by apostrophes. The apostrophe is one of a small number of punctuation marks that routinely confuses computers (or rather poorly written software…).
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