It seems Birmingham isn’t the only city having bother with place name apostrophes, as shown by the Londonist website’s post on Should King’s Cross Have An Apostrophe?. Unlike Birmingham City Council, however, the various London authorities haven’t reached a unanimous decision.
The simple truth is that there is no ‘official’ stance on the name. Or, if there is, no one pays any attention. While apostrophes are often crucial in written language, they are less important to place names. No one reads ‘Kings Cross’ and assumes that multiple monarchs must be crossing the street. It’s a label and nothing more. If you need a rule, try using an apostrophe when talking about the stations and no apostrophe when describing the area. It makes no sense, but that’s often the case with rules.
Do you live in an area with punctuation dilemmas? I’d love to hear about them in the comments.
By Marian Dougan
Published by Marian Dougan
Marian is a translator and editor (specialising in web content) currently based in Glasgow, Scotland. Marian previously lived in Italy for over 20 years, working as a language teacher, translator and policy analyst with the British Embassy in Rome. A qualified member of the Institute of Translation and Interpreting (ITI) and its Italian-language and ITI Scotnet networks, she is currently Scotnet's Convenor and Deputy Webmaster.
From 2003 to 2006 Marian taught translation skills at the Italian Department of Glasgow University and now gives Master Classes as part of the new Masters in Translation Studies course. She also conducts web-writing and usability workshops to help people improve their websites and communicate more effectively with their readers, users and customers. In September 2014 Marian obtained User Experience Certification, with specialisation in Web Design, from the Nielsen Norman Group.
She loves language, especially English, and is convinced that learning languages opens up people’s minds and horizons (and increases their brainpower!). To share her enthusiasm, she advises schools and educational authorities on language skills and enterprise. She gives talks to pupils on how to combine language studies with other subjects and so enhance their potential and increase their career options.
Marian is an active member of organisations such as: Scottish Council Development and Industry (SCDI); Association of Scottish Businesswomen; Dunbartonshire Chamber of Commerce and the Italian Chamber of Commerce in Scotland.
She also loves architecture, design, fashion (British Vogue!), cities and chocolate. She’s a great fan of Twitter and you can also find her on Linkedin.
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Thank you for this interesting post. Being a language geek, and working with them every day, this is always a contentious issue. Stricly speaking, as far as I’m concerned, a sign such as “King’s Cross” without an apostrophe looks plain wrong! However, I’m sure there are people who would argue otherwise.
It looks wrong to me too, and then there’s the lack of consistency from one neighbourhood to another. But I suppose that’s part of what makes cities fun.