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Signs at St. James' Park
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November 24th 03, 12:03 AM posted to uk.transport.london
Martin Underwood
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First recorded activity at LondonBanter: Nov 2003
Posts: 221
Signs at St. James' Park
"Peter Beale" wrote in message
o.uk...
In article ,
(Richard J.) wrote:
sigh Another sign that English isn't taught well these days. If
you had been brought up in, say, Liverpool or Manchester, you would have
been
very familiar with the large store called Lewis's (different company to
John Lewis).
Elsewhere you would have been exhorted by adverts on trams and buses to
"Shop at Binns" (I think without any apostrophe - but the proprietor's
name was
Binns).
This is analogous to Tesco, W H Smith etc which don't use the possessive
either in their name.
My New Oxford Dictionary of English (OUP, 1998-2001), page 1632, says the
following:
's :- suffix denoting possession in singular nouns, also in plural nouns not
having a final -s: the car's engine | Mrs Ross's son | the children's
teacher
So they actually give an example "Mrs Ross's son" not "Mrs Ross' son",
suggesting that the former is acceptable and/or preferable to the latter.
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