Apostrophist corrects punctuation on street signs

[Ed Avis-2]

>
This news story shows that what's printed on the street sign is not
necessarily the correct street name:

<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/6046862/
 Apostrophist-corrects-punctuation-on-street-signs.html>

>Frustrated by living in "St Johns Close", in Turnbridge Wells, Mr Gatward
>decided to buy a can of black paint and a craft brush before correcting the name
>to "St John's Close".

>A Tunbridge Wells Borough Council spokesman said they would not be following the
>example of Birmingham City Council, which announced this year that they would be
>banning the apostrophe from road signs for simplicity.
>
>The spokesman added that were the signs ever to be replaced, they would be
>punctuated correctly.

--
Ed Avis <eda@...>


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[David Earl]

On 11/11/2009 14:31, Ed Avis wrote:
> Frustrated by living in "St Johns Close", in Turnbridge Wells, Mr Gatward
> decided to buy a can of black paint and a craft brush before correcting the name
> to "St John's Close".

I've come across any number of streets where the apostrophe is missing
on one sign and present on another either opposite or at the other end
of the street.

David


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[Andy Robinson (blackadder-lists)]

David Earl wrote:

>Sent: 11 November 2009 4:05 PM
>To: Ed Avis
>Cc: talk@...
>Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] Apostrophist corrects punctuation on street signs
>
>On 11/11/2009 14:31, Ed Avis wrote:
>> Frustrated by living in "St Johns Close", in Turnbridge Wells, Mr Gatward
>> decided to buy a can of black paint and a craft brush before correcting
>the name
>> to "St John's Close".
>
>I've come across any number of streets where the apostrophe is missing
>on one sign and present on another either opposite or at the other end
>of the street.

And we know of councils that have a policy on new signs to drop all
apostrophise and other punctuation (eg St. to St as an abbreviation for
Saint). There are also many examples I have of the space between some words
being dropped. Summer Hill to Summerhill I spotted at the weekend for
instance. You can also see this happening when you compare the old names
found on OOC mapping and the names used on streets when the area has been
urbanised.

Cheers

Andy


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[David Earl]

On 11/11/2009 16:17, Andy Robinson (blackadder-lists) wrote:
> and other punctuation (eg St. to St as an abbreviation for
> Saint).

St. is wrong anyway - strictly speaking there should only be a period
after an abbreviation where letters are omitted, hence
   St. for st...reet
   St for S...ain...t
   Dr, Mr for D...octo...r, M...iste...r
   Rev. for Rev...erend
   Blvd for boulevard
   Ho. for Ho...use

David



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[Richard Fairhurst]

David Earl wrote:
> St. is wrong anyway - strictly speaking there should only be a
> period after an abbreviation where letters are omitted

Like so much English orthography, it's a matter of house style rather than a hard and fast rule.

The most common house style in British English, at least, over the last 25 years has been pretty much what you say: the full stop is only used where the word wouldn't usually end with the final letter of the abbreviation. So Street->St, Saint->St (also), railway->rly, but abbreviation->abbr., acknolwedgement->ackn., and so on.

That said, increasingly, the trend is to drop full stops altogether. I'd say that "Leics" and "Worcs" are now more often found than "Leics." and "Worcs.". "tbc" is certainly more common than "t.b.c.". I _think_ Rev is rapidly becoming as common as Rev., but abbr. and ackn. seem to be hanging on... for now.

cheers
Richard

[David Lynch-5]

On Wed, Nov 11, 2009 at 10:23, David Earl <david@...> wrote:
> On 11/11/2009 16:17, Andy Robinson (blackadder-lists) wrote:
>> and other punctuation (eg St. to St as an abbreviation for
>> Saint).
>
> St. is wrong anyway - strictly speaking there should only be a period
> after an abbreviation where letters are omitted, hence

Depends on which variant of English you're using. In the USA, the
formal rule is to put a period after any abbreviation comprised of the
first and last letter of a word, but US Postal Service fiat is that
abbreviations can have no punctuation other than hyphens and that has
generally been copied into most maps. Thus, Saint Elmo Road is "St.
Elmo Rd." in a newspaper, but "St Elmo Rd" on an envelope or in TIGER
data.

I tend to cringe at the signs on a street named William Cannon
locally. There are a lot of places where "WM. CANNON" got replaced
with "W. M. Cannon" when they last renewed the signs and switched from
all-caps to mixed case.

--
David J. Lynch
djlynch@...

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[Liz-25]

On Thu, 12 Nov 2009, David Lynch wrote:
> Depends on which variant of English you're using. In the USA, the
> formal rule is to put a period after any abbreviation comprised of the
> first and last letter of a word, but US Postal Service fiat is that
> abbreviations can have no punctuation other than hyphens and that has
> generally been copied into most maps.

In Australia the periods and apostrophes are being progressively dropped.


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