Scene is set for a pedants’ revolt as city dares to banish the apostrophe from its street signs

From The Times January 30, 2009

'For defenders of the apostrophe, who are more used to fighting minor skirmishes against greengrocers and butchers, it amounts to a major defeat: the day they lost Birmingham.

After a tense grammatical debate Birmingham City Council has decreed that possessive apostrophes shall no longer appear on its street signs.

No ceremony marked this expulsion from the municipality, only a statement from Martin Mullaney, chairman of the council’s transportation scrutiny committee. He noted that for some time the apostrophe had been slipping from signs all over the city.

Mr Mullaney argued that since the monarchy no longer owned Kings Heath, or Kings Norton, and since the Acock family no longer owned Acocks Green, the punctuation marks that once appeared in those names were now redundant. Defenders of the apostrophe in Birmingham responded with angry question marks. Much like the names on their street signs, some residents appeared to be possessive. They demanded the return of their apostrophes.

Mr Mullaney, however, stood firm: “The consensus of the city council on the future use of possessive apostrophes in place names is that they should not be reintroduced,” he wrote, in a grammatically correct entry on his blog. He added: “This view will, I know, upset a lot of residents.”

Mr Mullaney had raised the issue with residents at the beginning of this year. The transportation department was about to erect signs directing people to Kings Heath, and wanted to know whether there ought to be an apostrophe. On a community website, commentators argued that an apostrophe was required. “It’s important because it conveys the meaning of the Heath more accurately as belonging to the King — whether this be real or symbolic — in singular possessive terms,” wrote one, adding that it was a discussion that had occupied some residents’ groups “for some time”.

For their part, the Plain English Society and the Plain Language Commission both said there was no rule in Britain with regard to possessive apostrophes in place names.

The US dropped such punctuation in 1890 when the US Board of Geographic Names removed the apostrophe from its database. Only five exceptions have ever been made, including Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, in 1933. Australia followed suit in 2001 for the sake of consistency in the databases used by the emergency services, said Mr Mullaney. “It would be tragic if the ambulance couldn’t find your street if you forgot to use the possessive apostrophe.”

Above all, there was the cost of reintroducing the marks. If the council gave one road an apostrophe, residents on countless others would want one. “The cost would be astronomical,” he said.

The once punctuated suburbs of Kings Heath and Acocks Green were quiet last night: residents appeared to have come to terms with their loss.

On Wheelers Lane, Kings Heath, where the street sign’s apostrophe has been painted over, Jean Read, 71, a retired dinner lady, said: “I can’t even remember having one.”

There was anger, however, at the headquarters of the Apostrophe Protection Society in Lincolnshire. John Richards, the society’s founder and chairman, said: “It’s setting a very bad example because teachers all over Birmingham are teaching their children punctuation. Then they see road signs with apostrophes removed.” '

It is some time since I noticed the apostrophe had vanished from Henlys Corner on my way to work :-(