John Rowland wrote:
John B wrote:
wrote:
BARONS COURT / Barons Court (not so much an anomaly as simply both
being wrong, with the absence of an apostrophe)
PARSONS GREEN / Parsons Green (ditto)
"To court" is a verb, and barons is a legitimate plural...having
"green" as a verb would be pushing it a bit, though.
You can write "persons unknown" or "malice aforethought", so why not
"parsons green"?
Because the green is that of the parson, i.e. it belongs (or
historically did) belong to the parson whose church is on its Western
side, hence a possessive noun, requiring an apostrophe.
"Persons unknown" is not a possessive noun, i.e. the "unknown" is not
the property of the "persons", The word "unknown" in this context is an
adjective, simply describing the type of persons, i.e. "unknown
persons".
I'm not sure what maliceaforethought (apart from being a rather ugly
combination and probably gramatically wrong, but accepted through
common usage) has to do with it!
Marc.