{"id":4037,"date":"2009-02-17T16:00:09","date_gmt":"2009-02-17T21:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/2009\/02\/17\/an-apostrophe-catastrophe\/"},"modified":"2009-02-17T16:00:24","modified_gmt":"2009-02-17T21:00:24","slug":"an-apostrophe-catastrophe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2009\/02\/17\/an-apostrophe-catastrophe\/","title":{"rendered":"An apostrophe catastrophe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2073\/2502555496_3327a6cb25.jpg\" height=\"375\" width=\"500\" \/><\/p>\n<p>A few weeks ago I posted about the <a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2009\/01\/27\/street-signs-of-the-times\/\">new Toronto street signs<\/a> which prompted a good debate amongst our readers about the pros-and-cons of the new design. But another kind of street sign debate is raging across the Atlantic. In Birmingham, England, city council has made the final decision to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/28938136\/\">drop apostrophes from their street signs<\/a>. Goodbye <em>Queen&#8217;s Park<\/em>, hello <em>Queens Park<\/em>.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\"><em>It seems that Birmingham officials have been taking a hammer to grammar for years, quietly dropping apostrophes from street signs since the 1950s. Through the decades, residents have frequently launched spirited campaigns to restore the missing punctuation to signs denoting such places as &#8220;St. Pauls Square&#8221; or &#8220;Acocks Green.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"textBodyBlack\" align=\"left\"><em><span id=\"byLine\"><\/span>This week, the council made it official, saying it was banning the punctuation mark from signs in a bid to end the dispute once and for all.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"textBodyBlack\" align=\"left\"><em><span id=\"byLine\"><\/span>Councilor Martin Mullaney, who heads the city&#8217;s transport scrutiny committee, said he decided to act after yet another interminable debate into whether &#8220;Kings Heath,&#8221; a Birmingham suburb, should be rewritten with an apostrophe.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"textBodyBlack\" align=\"left\"><em><span id=\"byLine\"><\/span>&#8220;I had to make a final decision on this,&#8221; he said Friday. &#8220;We keep debating apostrophes in meetings and we have other things to do.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"textBodyBlack\" align=\"left\"><em>&#8230;<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"textBodyBlack\" align=\"left\"><em>But grammarians say apostrophes enrich the English language.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"textBodyBlack\" align=\"left\"><em><span id=\"byLine\"><\/span>&#8220;They are such sweet-looking things that play a crucial role in the English language,&#8221; said Marie Clair of the Plain English Society, which campaigns for the use of simple English. &#8220;It&#8217;s always worth taking the effort to understand them, instead of ignoring them.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"textBodyBlack\" align=\"left\"><em><span id=\"byLine\"><\/span>Mullaney claimed apostrophes confuse GPS units, including those used by emergency services. But Jenny Hodge, a spokeswoman for satellite navigation equipment manufacturer TomTom, said most users of their systems navigate through Britain&#8217;s sometime confusing streets by entering a postal code rather than a street address.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"textBodyBlack\"><em>\u00a0photo by <a href=\"http:\/\/flickr.com\/photos\/loosecanon1972\/2502555496\/\">Rachel Canon<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A few weeks ago I posted about the new Toronto street signs which prompted a good debate amongst our readers about the pros-and-cons of the new design. But another kind of street sign debate is raging across the Atlantic. In Birmingham, England, city council has made the final decision to drop apostrophes from their street<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2009\/02\/17\/an-apostrophe-catastrophe\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;An apostrophe catastrophe&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1022,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[1379,11484,3425,11486,11485,11487,21,11491,11488,11490,11489,464],"class_list":["post-4037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-streetscape","tag-birmingham","tag-councilor-martin-mullaney","tag-gps","tag-jenny-hodge","tag-marie-clair","tag-martin-mullaney","tag-other-cities","tag-plain-english-society","tag-satellite-navigation-equipment-manufacturer","tag-spokeswoman","tag-tomtom","tag-united-kingdom"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>An apostrophe catastrophe - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2009\/02\/17\/an-apostrophe-catastrophe\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"An apostrophe catastrophe - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A few weeks ago I posted about the new Toronto street signs which prompted a good debate amongst our readers about the pros-and-cons of the new design. 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He is the author, editor, and photographer of 11 books. He is also a graphic artist, product designer, and deeply-committed advocate for Toronto. TWITTER: @MatthewBlackett INSTAGRAM: @MatthewBlackett\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/author\/matt\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"An apostrophe catastrophe - Spacing Toronto","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2009\/02\/17\/an-apostrophe-catastrophe\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"An apostrophe catastrophe - Spacing Toronto","og_description":"A few weeks ago I posted about the new Toronto street signs which prompted a good debate amongst our readers about the pros-and-cons of the new design. But another kind of street sign debate is raging across the Atlantic. 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