St Johns Wood or St John's Wood?
 

"Paul Terry" wrote in message
...
In message .com,

In cartography there has been a long tradition of copying and updating
earlier maps (with some notable exceptions) because of the cost of
surveying and plate-making. It would probably be fair to say that the
two big London re-mapping projects in the 1860s (Stanford's Library Map
and Weller's Dispatch Atlas) tended to set new standards of accuracy.
These days, I suspect that mapmakers generally follow the lead given by
the Ordnance Survey, especially with regard to spellings of road and
place names.


And the Ordnance Survey should get their information on street names from
the Local Authorities, who have a statutory function for Street Naming &
Numbering. You can have a lot of sleep-inducing time with this stuff if you
want to look at British Standard BS7666.

--
Richard

St Johns Wood or St John's Wood?
 

In message , Ned
Carlson writes

What I'm wondering, is HTF did apostrophes get into the
English language, anyway? None of its ancestor/contributing
languages (Anglo-Saxon, Norse, French, Celtic) use or
used apostrophes, did they?

The apostrophe (to indicate elision) was used in French and in Italian
before it appeared in English (from soon after 1500), and is still used
in both languages (d'Avignon, d'Italia, etc) for the same purpose.

It was used in the same way in English ("Th'expense of spirit in a waste
of shame"). But one of the most common examples was to show the omitted
final e in the genitive singular of Old English (which ends with -es in
the majority of nouns) - thus Kinges became King's and childes became
child's. And from this the apostrophe-s ('s) came to be used for the
genitive (possessive) form of most nouns, thus representing the spoken
form of the language more faithfully than the Old English form.

(That's a bit simplified ... but this is starting to get a bit
off-topic, even if it does still relate to the thread's subject :)
--
Paul Terry

St Johns Wood or St John's Wood?
 

On Wed, 28 Jun 2006, Paul Terry wrote:

shame"). But one of the most common examples was to show the omitted final e
in the genitive singular of Old English (which ends with -es in the majority
of nouns) - thus Kinges became King's and childes became child's.

Curiously enough, when teaching English to Italian the "'s" construct is
called (in italian) "genitivo sassone" (saxon genitive)

--
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St Johns Wood or St John's Wood?
 

mmellor wrote:
Mark B wrote:

Which is right,
St James' Park (on the signs)
St James Park (in the FGW Timetable)
Pronounced St James's Park, both locally and on the AutoAnouncer

St James's Park, because that's the name of the park.

From the mention of FGW, I think it's the station in Bristol that was
being referred to by Mark B, not the London park and station.
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

St Johns Wood or St John's Wood?
 

Richard J. wrote:
mmellor wrote:
Mark B wrote:

Which is right,
St James' Park (on the signs)
St James Park (in the FGW Timetable)
Pronounced St James's Park, both locally and on the AutoAnouncer

St James's Park, because that's the name of the park.

From the mention of FGW, I think it's the station in Bristol that was
being referred to by Mark B, not the London park and station.

Exeter :)

St Johns Wood or St John's Wood?
 

On Wed, 28 Jun 2006 Paul Terry wrote:

The apostrophe (to indicate elision) was used in French and in Italian
before it appeared in English (from soon after 1500), and is still used
in both languages (d'Avignon, d'Italia, etc) for the same purpose.

It was used in the same way in English ("Th'expense of spirit in a waste
of shame"). But one of the most common examples was to show the omitted
final e in the genitive singular of Old English (which ends with -es in
the majority of nouns) - thus Kinges became King's and childes became
child's. And from this the apostrophe-s ('s) came to be used for the
genitive (possessive) form of most nouns, thus representing the spoken
form of the language more faithfully than the Old English form.

I always thought it was from omitting hi in King his, leading to King's.

--
Thoss

St Johns Wood or St John's Wood?
 

Ned Carlson wrote:

What I'm wondering, is HTF did apostrophes get into the
English language, anyway? None of its ancestor/contributing
languages (Anglo-Saxon, Norse, French, Celtic) use or
used apostrophes, did they?

Didn't the British government go on a campaign a few years
ago to eliminate unnecessary punctuation in bureaucratic
communications, aside from commas and full stops (what us
Americans call a period)?


There was no such campaign to my knowledge. But, I have been a
resident of these United States for most of the past twenty years. I
believe it is the UK practice not to use commas in legal documents. I
am still surprised when I see that my attorney has used them in court
submissions.

There is also a "Plain English" movement in the UK, championed, I
believe by one Trevor MacDonald.

Adrian.

St Johns Wood or St John's Wood?/British Standard BS7666.
 

Richard Rundle wrote:
"Paul Terry" wrote in message
...
In message .com,

In cartography there has been a long tradition of copying and updating
earlier maps (with some notable exceptions) because of the cost of
surveying and plate-making. It would probably be fair to say that the
two big London re-mapping projects in the 1860s (Stanford's Library Map
and Weller's Dispatch Atlas) tended to set new standards of accuracy.
These days, I suspect that mapmakers generally follow the lead given by
the Ordnance Survey, especially with regard to spellings of road and
place names.


And the Ordnance Survey should get their information on street names from
the Local Authorities, who have a statutory function for Street Naming &
Numbering. You can have a lot of sleep-inducing time with this stuff if you
want to look at British Standard BS7666.

Thank you. I did a Google search on "British Standard BS7666". It
returned some excellent information about UK Mailing Address
structures. I noted the absence of punctuation. However, I didn't
notice anything directly relating to street name sign posting. Maybe I
need to dig a little deeper.

This was great information.

Adrian.

St Johns Wood or St John's Wood?
 

In message . com, at
11:42:00 on Wed, 28 Jun 2006, remarked:

I believe it is the UK practice not to use commas in legal documents.

Commas are used very sparingly in Acts of Parliament, because they can
sometimes introduce ambiguities.
--
Roland Perry

St Johns Wood or St John's Wood?
 

In message , thoss
writes

On Wed, 28 Jun 2006 Paul Terry wrote:

thus Kinges became King's and childes became child's. And from this
the apostrophe-s ('s) came to be used for the genitive (possessive)
form of most nouns, thus representing the spoken form of the language
more faithfully than the Old English form.

I always thought it was from omitting hi in King his, leading to King's.

That has long been used as a simple explanation in teaching of what the
genitive case *can* indicate, but it is not rooted in historical fact.

For instance, Queen's College is rather unlikely to be the modern form
of "Queen his college" :)

As I said above, the apostrophe simply indicates the omission of the
final e from the Old English genitive ending, -es.

Thus, King's College is the modern form of Kinges College.
And Queen's College is the modern form of Queenes College.

And, although the apostrophe can now be used to differentiate between
the genitive singular and the genitive plural (Queen's College Oxford v.
Queens' College Cambridge, mentioned earlier), this is a relatively
modern usage - the Cambridge College was known as Queenes and then
Queen's until 1831 (when historicism and affectation combined to move
the apostrophe along one letter :)
--
Paul Terry