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The apostrophe is apparently too "old fashioned" for the government types in Birmingham.
"It seems that Birmingham officials have been taking a hammer to grammar for years, quietly dropping apostrophes from street signs since the
1950s."
That's right. They've removed the apostrophes from all street signs because "they confuse people". What people?! Three year olds? Supposedly,
"Apostrophes denote possessions that are no longer accurate, and are not needed," he [Councilor Martin Mullaney] said. "More importantly, they confuse people. If I want to go to a restaurant, I don't want to have an A-level (high school diploma) in English to find it."
Because you need an A-level to know what something as obscure and archaic as an apostrophe is. Not that you learned this in grade school or anything. I'm so tired of advertisers/the government/random people trying to get away with their laziness with punctuation by calling it old fashioned and unnecessary, because what difference does it make if you put an accent on a word. Everyone knows what it is, right? Well, no. Sorry. But "esta" and "está" are not the same thing, just like "it's" isn't "its" and "Kings" isn't "King's". Get a punctuation manual and fucking learn the difference.
The article is here.
"It seems that Birmingham officials have been taking a hammer to grammar for years, quietly dropping apostrophes from street signs since the
1950s."
That's right. They've removed the apostrophes from all street signs because "they confuse people". What people?! Three year olds? Supposedly,
"Apostrophes denote possessions that are no longer accurate, and are not needed," he [Councilor Martin Mullaney] said. "More importantly, they confuse people. If I want to go to a restaurant, I don't want to have an A-level (high school diploma) in English to find it."
Because you need an A-level to know what something as obscure and archaic as an apostrophe is. Not that you learned this in grade school or anything. I'm so tired of advertisers/the government/random people trying to get away with their laziness with punctuation by calling it old fashioned and unnecessary, because what difference does it make if you put an accent on a word. Everyone knows what it is, right? Well, no. Sorry. But "esta" and "está" are not the same thing, just like "it's" isn't "its" and "Kings" isn't "King's". Get a punctuation manual and fucking learn the difference.
The article is here.
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