Ned Carlson wrote:

What I'm wondering, is HTF did apostrophes get into the
English language, anyway? None of its ancestor/contributing
languages (Anglo-Saxon, Norse, French, Celtic) use or
used apostrophes, did they?

Modern Dutch uses apostrophes in the plural of certain (or all?) nouns
ending in a long single vowel, such as "2 taxi's" or "3 piano's".

Big and Blue wrote:
wrote:

This, strictly speaking is incorrect. Street signage by statutory
bodies should NOT contain punctuation.

This is law?

This is a question for an attorney.

To my knowledge it is a very well established convention.

Does it apply to road signs to Westward Ho! ?

Who knows? My guess is that this would be an exception, based on the
"!" being part of the proper name.

Adrian.

wrote:
Phil Clark wrote:
On 27 Jun 2006 11:25:43 -0700, "Solario"
wrote:


Mark B wrote:

Which is right,
St James' Park (on the signs)
St James Park (in the FGW Timetable)
Pronounced St James's Park, both locally and on the AutoAnouncer

Opinion

The first example could be wrong in context. If it is a street
name sign it should read "St James Park". If it is a park name
board then I guess St James' Park could be correct. I would
expect a station name board to follow street name sign
conventions.

Street signs in St James's seem to be consistent in the use of the
spelling St James's. Not sure about the park though, haven't been
that way recently.

This, strictly speaking is incorrect. Street signage by statutory
bodies should NOT contain punctuation.

What is your source for this idiotic rule?
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

Richard J. wrote:
wrote:
Richard Rundle wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...

Richard Rundle wrote:

want to look at British Standard BS7666.

Thank you. I did a Google search on "British Standard BS7666".
It returned some excellent information about UK Mailing Address
structures. I noted the absence of punctuation. However, I
didn't notice anything directly relating to street name sign
posting. Maybe I need to dig a little deeper.

This was great information.


It's more to do with geographic address than postal addresses

Indeed, that was apparent. This standard looks as if it could be a
real help in real estate transactions. I am thinking in terms of
both statutory bodies and real estate agents.

Some of the elements (fields) laid out in the standard are very
similar to those required in a UK mailing address. The odd one is
were a unitary authority may be required instead of a County. Then,
again the use of counties in UK addresses is unusual compared with
other territories and inconsistent. E.g. So many postal towns now
longer need to be qualified by a county.

*No* UK postal addresses now need the county to be included. I find it
irritating when websites ask for your address with the county as a
mandatory field. Many of them will not accept an address in the form
123 Xyz Road, London, [postcode]. You are forced either to enter London
twice or to insert an unnecessary district name such as Acton in place
of the town name.
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

Which County is BRISTOL in these days? And, is it EDINBURGH Midlothian
(the old county) or EDINBURGH Lothian (the new region)?What happened to
those exceptions like MILTON KEYNES?

"Jim Hawkins" wrote in news:ZOUng.23334$q_4.10692
@fe06.highwinds-media.phx:


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


No, not since the year 2000.

:-)

In article ,
(Richard J.) wrote:

*No* UK postal addresses now need the county to be included. I find
it irritating when websites ask for your address with the county as a
mandatory field. Many of them will not accept an address in the form
123 Xyz Road, London, [postcode]. You are forced either to enter
London twice or to insert an unnecessary district name such as Acton
in place of the town name.

I just put in a space or an X for the County in London addresses for
organisations that stupid.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

wrote:
Richard J. wrote:
wrote:
Phil Clark wrote:
On 27 Jun 2006 11:25:43 -0700, "Solario"
wrote:


Mark B wrote:

Which is right,
St James' Park (on the signs)
St James Park (in the FGW Timetable)
Pronounced St James's Park, both locally and on the
AutoAnouncer

Opinion

The first example could be wrong in context. If it is a street
name sign it should read "St James Park". If it is a park name
board then I guess St James' Park could be correct. I would
expect a station name board to follow street name sign
conventions.

Street signs in St James's seem to be consistent in the use of
the spelling St James's. Not sure about the park though,
haven't been that way recently.

This, strictly speaking is incorrect. Street signage by statutory
bodies should NOT contain punctuation.

What is your source for this idiotic rule?

It is several decades since I was in academia. However, I have
understood for many years that this is the convention in English
speaking countries.

I'm not aware of such a convention, and have certainly seen street name
signs with apostrophes in London. There was a 1952 LCC regulation on
street name signs, and the Department of Transport issued a Circular,
number 3/93, giving guidance to local authorities. Neither contains any
reference to punctuation or apostrophes.

In point of fact, BS7666 would seem to formalize this convention
from a local government perspective within the UK.

I don't know how you arrive at that conclusion. BS7666 doesn't concern
itself with actual signs. The NPLG's "BS7666 for beginners", in
discussing how address data should be presented for inclusion in
BS7666-compliant databases, says that "No abbreviations or punctuation
shall be used, except apostrophes, ampersands, hyphens and parentheses
which may be used where they form part of an official name."
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

Richard J. wrote:

and some platforms use multiple stations (e.g.
King's Cross St. Pancras Circle/H&C/Met) so this is the only real
consistent standard.

Not sure what point you're making there. King's Cross St Pancras is AFAIK
the consistent name for all the LU platforms there.

Not everywhere. The tiles on the Met platforms spring to mind most readily,
although the current work is covering them up.

In message . com, at
14:28:46 on Thu, 29 Jun 2006, remarked:

Street signage by statutory bodies should NOT contain punctuation.

I saw a temporary roadsign yesterday, yellow like the AA used to erect,
but it didn't have an owner's name. It was pointing a route into the
back of Donnington, I presumed (there's an event there this weekend).

VIP's Officials

Of course, it may be that the VIPs do have special officials.
--
Roland Perry

In article .com writes:
Big and Blue wrote:
....
This, strictly speaking is incorrect. Street signage by statutory
bodies should NOT contain punctuation.
....
Does it apply to road signs to Westward Ho! ?

Who knows? My guess is that this would be an exception, based on the
"!" being part of the proper name.

And indeed, all signs in that neighbourhood have the exclamation mark.
--
dik t. winter, cwi, kruislaan 413, 1098 sj amsterdam, nederland, +31205924131
home: bovenover 215, 1025 jn amsterdam, nederland; http://www.cwi.nl/~dik/