An English council has residents up in arms over apostrophes

An English council provoked a rebellion by removing apostrophes from street signs.

North Yorkshire said signs for streets such as St Mary’s Walk in Harrogate will become apostrophe-free, to reduce database problems.

But local language sticklers are fighting back: One former teacher said it “riles my blood to see inappropriate grammar or punctuation,” and a vigilante used a marker pen to reinstate St Mary’s apostrophe.

Despite grammarians’ fury, the use of possessive apostrophes in English is relatively new, only becoming standard in the middle of the 19th century, although it is a relic of the Old English use of -es on the end of words in the “genitive” case, which denotes relations between things.