Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Pedants' corner
Original poster

AIBU to be very distressed that my new road DOES NOT have an apostrophe in either of the places it could be?

27 replies

notevenamousie · 09/02/2011 15:59

Family and friends just look mildy amused and give me a bit of a wry smile and a "there, there dear" kind of comment.

But, we could be living here for a while. I'm not going to out myself with the actual address, but I even checked with Royal Mail and there is no apostrophe. I have far bigger things to worry about, of course, which this is proving a welcome distraction to!!

OP posts:
supadupapupascupa · 09/02/2011 16:02

well unless you give us a clue we can't assess your reasonableness.

you could always nip out in the middle of the night with a marker pen and insert the offending ommissions......

Grin
Original poster
notevenamousie · 09/02/2011 16:48

For example, Princes Road. Is it Prince's or Princes' Road. Surely it should be one or the other??

OP posts:
TheChewyToffeeMum · 09/02/2011 16:50

Oh dear. That would really upset me too. I know better than to admit it to anyone though.

Minda · 09/02/2011 18:15

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

prism · 09/02/2011 19:37

I don't think it's quite so clear-cut. Looking at the map nearby I see that there's a "Princes Avenue" and a "Pantiles Close". You can have road names that start with a non-possessive plural. I know it sounds odd in the case of "Princes" but it's not wrong if that is what was specifically intended in the first place.

thisisyesterday · 09/02/2011 19:39

like Earls Court

supadupapupascupa · 09/02/2011 20:36

it could be plural like more than one prince. that wouldn't need an apostrophe would it?

DaisySteiner · 09/02/2011 20:39

Presumably it's plural of prince. No reason that it should have an apostrophe just because it ends in 's'.

Original poster
notevenamousie · 10/02/2011 07:15

But if plural (it's not actually Prince) the it would be the road of Princes, ie. Princes' Road. Wouldn't it??

OP posts:
fanjoforthemammaries7850 · 10/02/2011 07:19

Princes street in Edinburgh is world famous and seems to manage without its apostrophe..

MackerelOfFact · 10/02/2011 07:57

There was a road I used to live near which was Kings Road. Used to annoy me too. Then they inexplicably changed the name to Kingsroad. I could never decide if that made me happier or not.

AgentProvocateur · 10/02/2011 08:10

Is it derived from a place name, perhaps? Like St Andrews Drive? I think you need to tell us the street name so we can either share your outrage or tell you YABU.

AtYourCervix · 10/02/2011 08:14

i think i had similar but discovered that this is not Andrew's way (or the way belonging to Andrew) but Andrews way ( the way belonging to Mr Andrews) or should it be Andrews' way?

BaggedandTagged · 10/02/2011 08:20

YABU because you wouldn't assume it was a possessive if it was singular.

e.g. Prince Street or Princes Street

Neither denotes possession but one is singular and the other plural.

If all roads are deemed to be the road belonging to "whatever comes before it" then all roads should have an apostrophe and almost all would end in S.

BalloonSlayer · 10/02/2011 08:21

I have never seen a road or town name that had an apostrophe at all. I thought it was an idiosyncracy of the language, like if things are possessive they have an apostrophe except in the case of "it" and road and town names.

llareggub · 10/02/2011 08:23

Oh! I have the same distress. In fact I mentioned it to someone the other day and they were surprised that I'd even noticed.

llareggub · 10/02/2011 08:25

Would it be wrong to smear a bit of mud in the place where the apostrophe should be? I might get my toddler to do it. Big society and all that.

supadupapupascupa · 10/02/2011 09:46

OP princes street doesn't have to mean the street of the princes (suggesting ownership) but the street FOR the princes in which case it is plural....

loving this, it's really got my brain working.....

wonderstuff · 10/02/2011 19:53

My road sign has an apostrophe [smug]

Like it was anything to do with me! I was stupidly pleased when I first saw it though [saddo]
No one ever writes it on an envelope and you can never enter it into web forms - but nice to know the local council were paying attention at school.

SpawnChorus · 10/02/2011 20:41

I lived on one of them.

I had to move Sad Wine

schroeder · 10/02/2011 20:49

I seem to remember reading somewhere that it is the convention not to use apostrophes for roads and streets.

wonderstuff · 10/02/2011 21:01

seems there is no rule on roads and street names unless you live in Birmingham!

Original poster
notevenamousie · 11/02/2011 14:53

I do love MN - people might not be as strange as me but there are other people who think about the same strange things. Unfortunately our road sign is about 7 ft up the side of someone's house so I can't let the toddler loose.
I don't really understand the 'for' thing, maybe I need to go back to school for grammar lessons! Maybe I should not mention my distress to others too often though, it's clearly not very normal...

OP posts:
BlooKangaWonders · 11/02/2011 15:25

I thought road signs never had punctuation... rather like the old road direction signs where half was written 1 2 without the line in the middle as it makes it easier to read.

Well, that's what I was told!

LindyHemming · 16/02/2011 12:33

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.