St Johns Wood or St John's Wood?
 

"thoss" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 26 Jun 2006 wrote:
the normal English grammar rules for
apostrophes are generally dropped on street name signs

Why?

In general, all punctuation and diacritical marks are dropped to make signs
and addresses as easy to read/write as possible. Therefore "St. John's"
becomes "St Johns" (notice the two changes). At least where English is the
common language; I assume in languages where accents and such are used more
frequently, signmakers are more tolerant of them :)

I can't think of any roads near me with missing apostrophes, but there's a
Mañana Road near me, and the city and post office both write it as "Manana
Rd" to keep things simple (though it's "Mañana Rd" on highway signs).

S

--
Stephen Sprunk "Stupid people surround themselves with smart
CCIE #3723 people. Smart people surround themselves with
K5SSS smart people who disagree with them." --Aaron Sorkin


--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

St Johns Wood or St John's Wood?
 

Stephen Sprunk wrote:
"thoss" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 26 Jun 2006 wrote:
the normal English grammar rules for
apostrophes are generally dropped on street name signs

Why?

In general, all punctuation and diacritical marks are dropped to make signs
and addresses as easy to read/write as possible. Therefore "St. John's"
becomes "St Johns" (notice the two changes). At least where English is the
common language; I assume in languages where accents and such are used more
frequently, signmakers are more tolerant of them :)

I can't think of any roads near me with missing apostrophes, but there's a
Mañana Road near me, and the city and post office both write it as "Manana
Rd" to keep things simple (though it's "Mañana Rd" on highway signs).

S

--
Stephen Sprunk "Stupid people surround themselves with smart
CCIE #3723 people. Smart people surround themselves with
K5SSS smart people who disagree with them." --Aaron Sorkin


--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

There is a road through Beverly Hills, its name is spelt variously
"Cañon Drive" and "Canon Drive".

Adrian.

St Johns Wood or St John's Wood?
 

wrote:
wrote:
Jim Hawkins wrote:
wrote in message
ps.com...


PedantGrecian is generally a more pleasing way to describe things
appertaining to the country Greece, than Greek./pedant

Adrian.

Whilst an urn may be Grecian, the language is Greek.

Jim Hawkins

And, unfortunately in street venacular, Greek has come to mean buggery.
Therefore it is more pleasing, to my ears, to hear that "The
Watercress Line has a Grecian locomative" (a locomative imported from
Greece), than "The Watercress Line has a Greek locomative" (a buggered
locomotive!)

Adrian.

So, Adrian, a locomative becomes a locomotive only when buggered?

Personally speaking I will be keeping my own private parts well away
from the firebox!

Marc.

But not as buggered as my spelling.

Adrian.

St Johns Wood or St John's Wood?
 

On 26 Jun 2006 10:13:51 -0700, wrote:


Tristán White wrote:
The roundels are wrong.

His name is John, not Johns.

Therefore, the apostrophe HAS to go between the n and the s. Any other
signage is the product of illiterate designers.

JOHN'S

MARTIN'S




In the case of plural nouns, the apostrophe always goes afterwards. So

SPANIARDS' INN
if it refers to more than one Spaniard, or else

SPANIARD'S INN


Where there is some discussion is if the given name already ends with S.

Eg JAMES'S PALACE
or JAMES' PALACE

But never JAMES PALACE



The official line is, certainly as far as the University of London is


The name is derived from the Saint or Saints (there being two of
them), reference to any other John being irrelevent. Generally as in
French,when writing in majescules, such technical drama as punctuation
is not only unnecessary but not easily read by those hard of hearing,
thinking or seeing. people other than car drivers may also find
difficulty as grammar has not been taught in UK for a very long time.

St Johns Wood or St John's Wood?
 

wrote:

Where there is some discussion is if the given name already ends with S.

Eg JAMES'S PALACE
or JAMES' PALACE

But never JAMES PALACE

Can't agree on that. It's a palace or court named for St. James,
not possessed by St. James. Apostrophe indicates possession.
Ambassadors to Britain are appointed to the Court of Saint James, not
Saint James' Court. However, the official royal website calls the
palace, St. James's Palace.

The irony is that St. James was supposedly buried in Compostela, Spain,
and is one of the patron saints of Spain. In Spanish, he has
a special name, "Santiago". You'd think after defeating the
Spanish Armada, the royal house might have thought about renaming
the palace, huh?


--
Ned Carlson
SW side of Chicago, USA
www.tubezone.net

St Johns Wood or St John's Wood?
 

On Mon, 26 Jun 2006 Stephen Sprunk wrote:

In general, all punctuation and diacritical marks are dropped to make
signs and addresses as easy to read/write as possible. Therefore "St.
John's" becomes "St Johns" (notice the two changes).

Well, the first change is welcome because your original is wrong IMHO.
To quote the Concise Oxford Dictionary "Abbreviations are made chiefly
in two ways....(2)Some portion of the middle of the word is dropped out,
the first and last letter being retained...the writing of a full stop at
the end of these, though now usual, is to be deprecated....The method
adopted in the following list is to omit the otiose full stop".
--
Thoss

St Johns Wood or St John's Wood?
 

In article "Stephen Sprunk" writes:
....
In general, all punctuation and diacritical marks are dropped to make signs
and addresses as easy to read/write as possible. Therefore "St. John's"
becomes "St Johns" (notice the two changes).

As far as I know in British English there is no full stop following an
abbreviation if the last letter of the abbreviation is also the last
letter of the complete word. (This is different in US English.)
--
dik t. winter, cwi, kruislaan 413, 1098 sj amsterdam, nederland, +31205924131
home: bovenover 215, 1025 jn amsterdam, nederland; http://www.cwi.nl/~dik/

St Johns Wood or St John's Wood?
 

In message , at
08:21:09 on Tue, 27 Jun 2006, Ned Carlson
remarked:
However, the official royal website calls the palace, St. James's
Palace.

And all the old maps I have ever found (going back centuries) also use
that spelling (for the palace and nearby roads, churches etc).
--
Roland Perry

St Johns Wood or St John's Wood?
 

Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at
08:21:09 on Tue, 27 Jun 2006, Ned Carlson
remarked:
However, the official royal website calls the palace, St. James's
Palace.

And all the old maps I have ever found (going back centuries) also use
that spelling (for the palace and nearby roads, churches etc).
--
Roland Perry

So the question is: Do cartographers follow street signposting
conventions, or, do they "correct" the spelling of street names
back into their normal English form?

Moreover, has cartographic practice, in this respect, changed over
time?

Adrian.

St Johns Wood or St John's Wood?
 

In message .com, at
09:00:55 on Tue, 27 Jun 2006, remarked:
However, the official royal website calls the palace, St. James's
Palace.

And all the old maps I have ever found (going back centuries) also use
that spelling (for the palace and nearby roads, churches etc).

So the question is: Do cartographers follow street signposting
conventions, or, do they "correct" the spelling of street names
back into their normal English form?

I doubt if the old maps I have are derived from street signage.

Moreover, has cartographic practice, in this respect, changed over
time?

If there's a dispute between the cartographer's long term understanding
of what a street is called, and what the council puts a sign up saying,
I expect they have a dialogue.
--
Roland Perry