While one English city has banned apostrophes from its street names "to avoid confusion", it seems that not everywhere in the UK is so worried about consistency in naming:
Sorry about the awful picture quality, I took the photos in the dark with my camera phone.
The road is in Southwold, Suffolk, by the way.
Field Stile Road / Fieldstile Road
Posted by
JD (The Engine Room)
on Tuesday, 17 February 2009
Labels:
Fieldstile Road,
place names,
signs,
Southwold
4 comments:
This reminds me of Quatermass and the Pit, where they make a point of showing the old and new road name signs (one over the other): Hobb and Hob.
Of course, in this case, Hob meant "Devil" and they'd renamed the road to hide from the satanic influences...
Where I grew up was first called "Blackthorne Avenue" and then susequently changed to "Blackthorn Avenue" without explanation!
It's amazing how much these things vary! Signs for place names are incredibly inconsistent all over the world. I once stayed with a pen-friend in a village in France, and the name of the village was spelt in at least two ways. The town I grew up in has been spelt (and pronounced) at least two ways during my mother's lifetime (admittedly there might have been some idea that one form is more Welsh than the other but, if so, this is entirely spurious).
Place names written without apostrophes are very common (think Earls Court, Kings Cross, Princes St). Birmingham is reported as having "banned" apostrophes; it's more in keeping with the spirit of the move to say that it's just standardised practice (though why they felt this necessary is unclear). Considering that it's not always clear if an apostrophe should go before or after the -s (though apparently Princes St refers to several princes, and Kings Cross refers to only one king), I can't really blame them for going in the direction they have.
there is a very eccentric bed and breakfast in fieldstyle road in southwold.
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