Birmingham's lost apostrophes

Martin Mullaney, councillor for Moseley and Kings Heath (sic) Ward, has blogged that apostrophes in Birmingham's road signs will "not be re-introduced" (sic). He provides the following "reasons" for this "proposal": consistency, avoiding confusion, cost, and confusion. (Yes, really.)

I couldn't have imagined how the inclusion of an apostrophe might lead to confusion, but clearly Mr Mullaney has investigated the matter thoroughly:

It would be tragic if the ambulance couldn't find your street, if you forgot to include the possessive apostrophe when calling 999.

I'm thankful that I don't live on King's Road. I can imagine that in my haste to contact the Emergency Services I might well forget to explain to the operator that the driver should be looking for King-apostrophe-s Road. I feel fortunate that we have such competent people in positions of authority. Perhaps Mr Mullaney should investigate the possibility of introducing a nation-wide system for pinpointing a geographical location. Some sort of short encoding for a map reference would seem to be in order.

With regards to the cost implications, there are "probably thousands of roads" that "would argue for" the inclusion of an apostrophe. Again, I'm impressed by the clarity of thinking in evidence. If you let one street have a punctuation mark, they'll all want one. It's in their nature. If Booth's Lane gets its way, then what's to stop Beeches Road complaining of preferential treatment? It won't stop there either. Next it will be Birmingham Children's Hospital wanting an apostrophe. Or Saint James' Church asking for a full stop (if Saint is abbreviated to St).

Can you imagine the man-hours involved in dealing with these issues on a case-by-case basis? The next thing you know we'll have to implement some kind of repository to store the names of all these roads and places for future reference. And don't get me started on the implications of employing people who actually know how to read.

The national media has picked up on this story and, as one might have predicted, sparked some interesting and lively debate online. Read this insightful comment from a reader of The Register:

People actually care about this? Actual, living, breathing members of society? Not fictitious people made up by the Daily Fail? This is what is wrong with this country.

Indeed. Imagine someone wasting their precious resources in order to pass comment on such a trivial matter. It is hard to conceive of a more efficient means of contributing to the downfall of society. This is the short end of the wedge. If members of the general public are concerned about or motivated by such petty things as spelling and grammar then what other interests might they harbour? God help us all if the people start demanding that those holding office should be numerate as well as literate. Soon they'll expect those who are employed by taxpayers to be ethical, capable, qualified, or even accountable. Britain would be ridiculed around the world.