The Bronte's of Haworth

[upinaballoon]

I bought the postcard because I liked the picture and the information on it. Then I noticed the heading, which says 'The Bronte's of Haworth'. Please tell me if I am right to think that the Brontes are like the Jacksons, the Smiths, the Patels, the Austens, the Sunaks, in that there was no place for the apostrophe.

During my life I have changed from writing the 1920's with an apostrophe to writing the 1920s without an apostrophe. I feel that there were other places where we used to use an apostrophe but maybe we don't now, but I am not sure.

Apostrophes are never used for plurals, I don't think they ever have been. It's an error on the postcard.

I don’t think apostrophes were ever used for the plural of names. (I’m having doubts though).
However, they were at one time used when pluralising words that aren’t usually pluralised. One example I remember from my childhood is “If if’s and an’s were pots and pans”
Also expressions like ‘mind your p’s and q’s’. Yes, I think 1920’s is no longer acceptable to most people, but used to be.

It's wrong, but it's part of a recognised pattern or being wrong, in which people use an apostrophe in the plurals of words ending in a vowel, as if they were worried that the word might be mispronounced otherwise. In this case, presumably, they wanted to make it clear that it's not just pronounced Bronts, on an analogy with blonde/blondes.

There's a takeaway in my town that advertises CHIPS, BURGERS, KEBABS and (wait for it) PIZZA'S. If the mistake was just based on thinking all plurals should have an apostrophe, all of those words would have one.

Pattern OF being wrong. That was a typo, not an error of actually knowing the right word.

Is there also an umlaut missing from their name?

Should it not be Brontës?

"The Brontes of Haworth " or "The Brontes' Haworth "

I think it's called diaeresis, but I could be wrong!

“There's a takeaway in my town that advertises CHIPS, BURGERS, KEBABS and (wait for it) PIZZA'S. If the mistake was just based on thinking all plurals should have an apostrophe, all of those words would have one.”

Yes, there’s a certain logic there. Otherwise it might be misread as pizzazz.

I don't know how to type an umlaut on this laptop. I did once ask Google how I could type an acute accent and I thought I obeyed the instructions, but it didn't work.

You need alt codes:

usefulshortcuts.com/alt-codes/accents-alt-codes.php

Hold down the alt key while typing the number, and when you release them all, you should see the accented letter of your choice.