Saturday, January 31, 2009

Apostrophe catastrophe

I know that many of my friends are grammar and punctuation sticklers, and this will freak them all out. Birmingham, England, dumps the apostrophe from street signs that require it.

5 comments:

  1. Anonymous2:50 PM

    Arrrrgh!

    I'm ashamed to say, I am from Birmingham. This is RIDICULOUS!

    Apostrophes are things you learn about at primary school... they're not that hard to figure out!

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  2. Anonymous5:15 PM

    The thing that REALLY made me cringe was the mention of pubs offering "'chip's and pea's.'"

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  3. The folks at Language Log pointed out that US maps already do that. Place names just don't get apostrophes.

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  4. Anonymous2:01 PM

    I can get behind the street signs losing the apostrophes, but the "chip's and pea's" bugged me too. Apostrophes are NOT that hard!

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  5. Anonymous6:37 PM

    I'm just shocked this didn't happen in my town first... Birmingham, Alabama. I'm sure we'll follow suit soon.

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