North Yorkshire Council to phase out apostrophe use on street signs:
"I think we should be using apostrophes.
"If you start losing things like that then everything goes downhill doesn't it?"
Love it! Those nebulous and un-pin-down-able things
will go downhill without apostrophes. Runaway S
es! 😆
Leon Mika Ugh, as someone who works in software, I always cringe when I see society adapting to the limitations of the software they use. It shouldn't be this way: the software should be fixed instead.
💬 John Philpin @lmika @braindump reporting the same thing 🔗 yesterday
// @miraz
I have a feeling it is because people don’t know how apostrophes work to begin with - hence the excellent mapmen video that points all of that out.
Miraz Jordan @JohnPhilpin "don’t know how apostrophes work" — that's half the problem. 😀 The other half is that in spoken English apostrophes don't even exist, yet we cope.
Miraz Jordan @lmika Good perspective, and I agree. I also think written English could usefully lose its apostrophes. After all, they don't exist in spoken English.
💬 John Philpin
in spoken English apostrophes don't even exist, yet we cope.
True, but neither do capital letters, periods/full stops, paragraphs etc.
Miraz Jordan @JohnPhilpin Some written punctuation fulfils a purpose, such as a full stop showing where a speaker may pause, or other marks that assist with understanding how the voice may change in some way — we may use inflection to indicate that a list comes next, for example.
The Micro Blog “The other half is that in spoken English apostrophes don't even exist, yet we cope.” Well, unless you’re a fan of Victor Borge!
Miraz Jordan @the Thank you! Always a laugh! (Followed by his Inflationary Language routine…)