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A BIZARRE BATTLE is raging in towns across Britain between lovers of the English language and local councils that are culling the humble apostrophe from street signs.
The historic university city of Cambridge was the latest in a series of places this year that have made the change, which transforms names such as King’s Road into Kings Road.
Cambridge was forced to backtrack after anonymous punctuation protectors mounted a guerrilla campaign, going out in the dead of night and using black marker pens to fill in the missing apostrophes (pictured).
The punctuation progamme by several municipalities is apparently in response to central government advice aimed at helping the work of the emergency services.
Earlier this year, a teenager died of an asthma attack after an apostrophe error led to an ambulance going to the wrong address.
“National guidelines recommended not allocating new street names that required any punctuation, as, we gather, this was not well coped with by some emergency services’ software,” Tim Ward of Cambridge City Council told AFP.
“Given the public interest that this awakened we checked back on the national guidelines that we’d followed when reviewing our policy, and found that the guideline recommending against including punctuation in new street names had been dropped.”
In countries such as the United States and Australia, apostrophes disappeared from street signs long ago.
But moves to do the same in Britain have aroused the ire of the guardians of the English language.
‘Commas will be next’
Kathy Salaman, director of The Good Grammar Company, a Cambridge-based organisation that provides training to companies, said the issue was not one of pedantry but of upholding wider standards.
“If they take our apostrophes, commas will be next,” she said.
In Britain the tendency is now that if something is too difficult, let’s get rid of it. Why are we trying to improve literacy when actually in real life people say it doesn’t really matter?
Salaman defended the word-warriors who had restored punctuation to street signs.
“If the apostrophe needs to be there, I don’t think it’s vandalism because I would say the language is being vandalised,” she said.
While Cambridge may have rescinded its apostrophe apocalypse, national authorities said that they still prefer street signs without punctuation.
GeoPlace, the organisation that oversees the production and maintenance of Britain’s national address and street gazetteers, said the final decision rests with local councils.
“However, the Data Entry Conventions documentation does state that GeoPlace would prefer not to receive data (including street names) with punctuation,” it said in a statement, citing machine readability and usability by emergency services as the reasons.
Dozens of local councils around the country are still waging war on the apostrophe, campaigners say.
“It’s serious,” said John Richard, founder and chairman of the Apostrophe Protection Society.
I don’t know why their computers couldn’t be trained to recognise an apostrophe.
He also lamented a decline in general standards.
“I think people are very lazy or very ignorant and the language is declining, is getting worse,” he said.
“It is setting a very bad example because teachers are teaching our children punctuation and then they see road signs with apostrophes removed.”
Several councils have consulted the Plain English Campaign, an independent group that has fought for clearer use of the language for more than three decades, to see what they think.
Tony Maher, the group’s general manager, said apostrophes were a problem for many people.
“Personally, I would leave the street names as they are in the hope that our children learn how to use apostrophes correctly. I still see shops with ‘greengrocers’ apostrophes’ emblazoned in their windows such as ‘Apple’s – 20p, Orange’s 25p, Sock’s £2′ and so on,” he said.
“I think it is one argument that will continue for many years to come.”
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More taxpayer funded bailouts for ffg buddies while Delaney walks away with over 400k and we go to jail for non payment tv licence fee to fund Ryan turbidys €1:50 steak dinners in Rte
@Tom o brien: shane ross calls us tollrats but we are always good for his bailouts thecheek of him
@Tom o brien: We have to take resonsibility also. We are the one who vote td to DAIL . On 8 Feb we will have opp to tell them that we want DAIL back in control of that creaking public fund being propped up now by pensions fund and holding loan fund that they say is for MIN TO SPEND FROM SUBJECT TO THE TERMS OF THE DEAL MADE BY LENIHAN WITH EU AND IMF and the min is going to take money out to FAI.
It is TD who made decison giving control to MIN .
We elect TD
Tme pe reall stat telling td cos u wonder about housing ??
@mr lanister: That’s because Soccer is the dominant sport by a mile in Dublin, where the government are trying hard to hold onto the seats they have. It’s no coincidence that this is announced in the last 9 days of the election.
@Marcus Mac An Bhaird: as in match seats! !
My tax money better not be funding this!!
@Lydia McLoughlin: considering governmet funding is restored your taxes are funding this
@Lydia McLoughlin: or………?
It’s not Irish football, why do people keep saying this. It’s Irish soccer
@maurice kavanagh: “Unqualified, the word football normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used”
I’d be fine with this if they’d just throw Delaney in jail
Good news, and the only option open to government.
Irelands most participated in sport deserves multiples of this bailout.
In time this past few months will be seen as the best thing to happen Irish football.
@Eamonn Duggan: This is the only sensible comment I’ve seen on this article.
@Eamonn Duggan: Gaelic is the most participated sport and if a Bailout was agreed the former directors and CEO should have been arrested on fraud offences first
@David Garland: All four Gaelic sports combined are marginally more participated in, but association football is the single sport with the highest participation by a distance
@Eamonn Duggan: a new beginning great news for soccer
@David Glynn: all these development coaches and the sessions they run are funded by both the FAI and LDCs (currently totally funded by LDC). LDCs are government funded. People like you seem to ignore this significant funding and all the grants given to local clubs in you arguments in favour of the rotten FAI. The FAI is hardly reformed when it’s president was on the council for 20 years not holding Delaney and co to account
@John Buckley: A.ll of them gone now. I just disagree with you on future funding. Anyway, its going ahead
@David Glynn: they are not all gone. Most of the council is still there and they are meant to be the ones who hold to the board to account. The president lost to the army place on the council but his buddies got him the football for all place so he would be eligible for the election – that stinks. John Earley finally stepped down from the board last month and his buddies gave him a position on the high-performance committee last week – that stinks. It is still a cesspool and needs a proper clear out.
Looks like Delaney’s pension pot is safe
fGFF our out out
This decision should be left until the next government takes power, just in case it involves Electronic voting
You’d nearly think there was an election around the corner
Absolutely disgraceful behaviour by Ross and the government, bailing out a useless corrupt organization using the pretence of keeping the grassroots organisation alive to promote healthy pastimes.
If they were serious about that the money available would be distributed between the Athletic organisations, GAA and Rugby, because anything given to FAI will be squandered or pushed down back pockets.
@Liam Mernagh: In this case it kind of had to happen, what is done is done with the FAI and unfortunately with the law being the way it is, nobody will have to pay the price for it. However I’m at least a little bit hopeful it can be better run going forward.
@Aidan: I hope you’re right Aidan, but I remain to be convinced, the culture of FAI is such that they don’t understand or care about good governance and that also applies to UEFA and FIFA. Cast your mind back to when Ireland was doing well under Jack & the tickets scandal with Nick the Greek and then Blatter and his governance of FIFA, culture it’s all about culture.
So they stop public funding of 2.9m per year because of all the shenanigans going on and then reverse course and not only restore that but double it to €5.8m and give interest free loans of €2.5m per year for the next 3 years.. call it what you want Mr. Ross but it’s high time you were on your bike!! Crisis after crisis in this country unresolved and you put public funds into a rotten organisation that was basically a little boys club with jobs for the lads and massive pay offs! Can’t wait till I get my day in the election!
Tax payers money being squandered
It’s not Government money
Disgraceful waste of public taxpayer s money.
FG not getting anything from me on 8th February.
This isn’t refinancing this is a government bailout for an organisation that has not even begun to make real changes in how its governed.
Complete joke this has happened but what else do you expect from FG
Bailout….
Tax payers money….
Etc, etc, etc…..
How much money have the government (councils) milked from schoolboy and schoolgirl football since they started charging the kids to play football in public parks?
Give me a break with your whinging…..
And the Election is when?????
The mint is going to be the new FAI HQ
Government making sure of a good few votes on February 8th.
“If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck”
This is extract from B Lenihan statement to Dail on AG advises and well intended.
But when PRSI Fund in pipeline to prop up creaking public fund under terms of deal that Taoisach later also decided did not req dail approval
and
TD did not object on behalf of DAIL accountable to us
AND
coming with mandate that promise are when we get into govt ..
time for people to start telling TD that NOT acceptable at all and that DAIL start flexing muscles cos no clarity of promise until it does take back control of that fund and that TD job. Under art 28 4 of constitution the govt is accountable to Dail.
But TD not invoking Dail power they are elected to on our behalf who pay the bill .
You said there was no bail out. Delaney walked away. Redundancy happens! Been there.. Ross you’re a total disgrace..
That will teach them the doubling of funding and interest free loans, no word of course on deloitte the poor auditors who were mislead after 20 years of consulting and auditing!!
If I had a business in Ireland ,or a mortgage and ran into trouble for a few grand, the state and the banks would be all over me like a rash, yet again the government see fit to bail out the rich kids that squandered money. Shameless Delaney and his pals are pissing themselves knowing they will never be accountable as to where all the 62.000.000 euro went. Crooks
Ane the Irish Tiddly-winks Federation can get on with its business entirely without a government subvention.
@Tony Harris: I find that a silly ruling when English FA/ Scottish FA and IFA all members of UEFA. It is like saying a person cant cross the border to work of they are under 18. All football clubs have responsible households veted to take under 18s in digs… it’s not as if they will be fending for themselves.
I hope this is the last we might see of lord Ross
Just in time for the election. But he got it done and his name is all over it. Played it very well in fairness.
Source: PA Archive/Press Association Images" title="">
Source: PA Archive/Press Association Images" title="">
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