Apostophy?

[Steph]

Do I hear, "Ye's"?

A few weeks ago, I saw a car pulling a trailer which presumably usually held a vintage motorbike, because a sign on it said:

" I'ts a 1958 Triumph Goldstar "

(the make of bike may be wrong due to poor memory)

I do remeber a bus at Harwich Port, which advertised 'your friendly local estate agent'. 'Your' took the following forms:
You're
You'r
Your'e
Youre.
'Your' was not actually present.

[Jon P]

I remember learning this stuff in 1st year at secondary school, and inventing silly turns of phrase like "the pupils' shoelaces" and asking how if you heard it spoken you could tell if it referred to just one pupil's shoelaces or the collective class' combined set of lacework-on-leather pair combinations, which annoyed the teacher no end.  While now I'm trying to invent ways of explaining it to my 11-yr-old German daughter, who wrote me a letter in English last week that was, I have to say, pretty literate; if not particularly idiomatic.

[hubner]

Going by the Fowler extracts, it seems to me, the -s' form has a archaic and more poetic quality which in a title sounds OK. Eg:
Socrates' Tears
Levi Stubbs' Tears
Bridget Jones' Diary etc.

Whereas the -s's form (with an extra syllable) has a more ordinary feel about it, eg:
Bridget Jones's Diary
"Can you get Mr Stubbs's file out the cabinet please"
"that's Jones's book".
And adding an extra syllable is the regular way to form the possessive or plural forms of words ending in s.

[Ian H]

My rule of thumb is that if I sound the extra s I write it. So if I say Joneziz  I write Jones's; if I say Stubbs I write Stubbs'.

[red marley]

Or to put it another way, "What Ian Hennesseys, he does."

[Pickled Onion]

N Yorkshire have banned apostrophes from their street names, saying

A spokesperson from North Yorkshire council 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 (eg apostrophes, hyphens and ampersands) to avoid potential problems when searching the databases as these characters have specific meanings in computer systems.”

Paragraph 1 is a simple LIE, BS7666 says nothing of the sort, and in fact all its examples have apostrophes in them. "Abbreviations and punctuation should not be used unless they appear in the designated name (e.g. ‘Earl’s Court Road’)."

Paragraph 2 makes my blood boil: if you're a programmer and you can't make your interface to the database work properly taking account of characters that have special meanings to your system, then you simply shouldn't be in your job. Changing the data to make your job easier is never the right answer.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/may/05/north-yorkshires-dropped-apostrophe-for-street-signs-upsets-residents

[citoyen]

Paragraph 2 makes my blood boil: if you're a programmer and you can't make your interface to the database work properly taking account of characters that have special meanings to your system, then you simply shouldn't be in your job. Changing the data to make your job easier is never the right answer.

Exactly what I said to my wife when I read this story! I have limited experience of coding databases in MySQL but even I know this. Even if it were genuinely necessary for the database, why should it require changing the street signs themselves? Absolutely nuts.

I don’t really care about the apostrophes but I do care about the lazy and idiotic programming.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Those are Yorkshire apostrophes: bigger, brighter, bluffer and better than standard apostrophes.

[HTFB]

Paragraph 2 makes my blood boil: if you're a programmer and you can't make your interface to the database work properly taking account of characters that have special meanings to your system, then you simply shouldn't be in your job. Changing the data to make your job easier is never the right answer.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/may/05/north-yorkshires-dropped-apostrophe-for-street-signs-upsets-residents

That's not https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/may/05/north-yorkshire%27s-dropped-apostrophe-for-street-signs-upsets-residents, now, is it?

It struck me on Saturday that the proper collective noun for greengrocer's apostrophes is a congerie's.

[rogerzilla]

I thought it was SOP not to use them on street names. It's quite unusual to see them.  You also get into debates about whether it should be All Saints Road or All Saints' Road, and whether some long-dead person was called Richard or Richards.

[Lightning Phil]

Paragraph 2 makes my blood boil: if you're a programmer and you can't make your interface to the database work properly taking account of characters that have special meanings to your system, then you simply shouldn't be in your job. Changing the data to make your job easier is never the right answer.

Exactly what I said to my wife when I read this story! I have limited experience of coding databases in MySQL but even I know this. Even if it were genuinely necessary for the database, why should it require changing the street signs themselves? Absolutely nuts.

I don’t really care about the apostrophes but I do care about the lazy and idiotic programming.

They can quite happily be stored in databases.  It’s just poor coding practice if they cause problems for them. If you want to do an SQL injection attack, sounds like their systems are the ones to attack. That’s essentially what the council is advertising.

[robgul]

I live in a road that requires an apostrophe . . .  I've given up with my address online - and the street signs are without.

Must speak to Lynne Truss about this . . . .

[jwo]

I suspect most here will already be thinking of Little Bobby Tables.

[citoyen]

If you want to do an SQL injection attack, sounds like their systems are the ones to attack. That’s essentially what the council is advertising.

That also crossed my mind.

I suspect most here will already be thinking of Little Bobby Tables.

 

[rogerzilla]

Swindon definitely doesn't use them.  Akers Way, Drakes Way, Queens Drive - all major thoroughfares   Even totally unambiguous cases like St Margarets Road.

[R_nger]

Saw this story the day after contemplating the local adjacent roads “Drakes Drive” and “Admirals Walk”.

[Pingu]

Different sides of a roundabout in Furrybootoon:

King's Gate and Kings Gate.

[Pickled Onion]

Saw this story the day after contemplating the local adjacent roads “Drakes Drive” and “Admirals Walk”.

They're just about acceptable, but what about St Jamess Road?

[Ian H]

Apostrophes can be problematical.

nb by Ian Hennessey, on Flickr

[Jurek]

Apostrophes can be problematical.

nb by Ian Hennessey, on Flickr

That's just utter cock.

[rogerzilla]

It might be drawing your attention to the new building's corner.

[Jaded]

It's got far too much exposure...

[Andy W]

Ill never renounce my religeous beliefs.

[Cudzoziemiec]

In Bristol we've avoided the problem by having Queen Square and King Square.

TBH I don't really mind whether we have St Paul's or St Pauls, a bigger problem is how to spell St Werburgh[']s.

[jwo]

Having grown up adjacent to St Werburghs, I'm in the St Wergburghs-Without camp.

Talking of which, my mum sent me this photo from St Werburghs yesterday, which pretty much sums up my impression of the place (and the momentum behind the growth of the Bristol Greens movement).