Posted by Ben @ September 1st, 2009 2:40 pm. Filed under: Apostrophe's,Just Crazy Enough To Work,Presumably The Prime Minister Is Not Too Busy — Tags: Graham L Banes, John Richards —
The ePetitions website hasn’t had any new petitions for some time. The Rejected pile has been growing and growing, and indeed that’s where we’ve been drawing from as a source this past fortnight, but there’s been nothing new and approved for a while now.
Until this morning, that is, when we were given this:
In January 2009, Birmingham City Council opted to permanently ban the apostrophe from the city’s road signs. We believe the apostrophe to be a key component of the English language that is crucial to understanding: in the case of “St Paul’s Square”, it denotes possession. We do not believe it is within a city council’s power to make such broad changes to our national language and we consider it tremendously insulting that Birmingham be littered with examples of incorrect English.
We accept that it would not be cost-effective to restore apostrophes to signs that lack them. Nonetheless, we ask the government to introduce a policy enforcing apostrophe use in new or replacement road signs, applying not only to Birmingham City Council but to all councils nationwide. Not only will this prevent them from wasting valuable time debating the issue, it will ensure that the apostrophe is used correctly by councils across the UK.
Really? Really? How did this guy slip through the net? I’m less amazed that the petition exists – looking at ridiculous petitions is, of course, what we’re here for – but I am amazed that this petition got approved while the clearly quite brilliant tartan cat collar petition gets passed over.
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