Apostrophe minefield

I had an e-mail from David the other day, who found himself in a quandary:

I am a regular in the St James Wine Vaults, which, according to the street sign is located on St James’ Square. Opposite the pub is a street sign for St James Court, but next to that is St James’s Barbers. After many nights discussing this, we’re fairly sure that the punctuation in one of them must be wrong and we’ve had long arguments about ownership (does St James own the barbers? No.. then it shouldn’t be possessive!). One of the complications we’re trying to work through is the correct punctuation for plurals in this instance – what if we were trying to talk about multiple St James persons (eg a couple of brothers?) without an attributed ownership…

I share your concerns about the possessive apostrophe; it can be quite a pickle as your collection of different sightings attests (and your extra apostrophe in ‘maps’ at the end of your e-mail; you must have been in a state).  Grammar is only useful to discern the intentions of the author which makes place names particularly difficult to assess: no single author controls the area and their intentions are all different.  Undaunted, I shall address them in turn:

St James Wine Vaults & St James Court
This is fine if they were simply using it as the name of the place without making a statement of ownership e.g. ‘Victoria Wine’: Victoria does not own the wine, it’s just the name they use.

St James’ Square
This is an old argument; my boss (an internationally-renowned linguist) and I almost came to blows over it recently.  She is of the mind that this would be fine.  I disagree: the style is only used for names of antiquity (Jesus’ sandals, Hippolytus’ horses and so on) but common usage – and by common, I mean the last three hundred years or so – demands an extra ’s’ when St James possesses something.  My trump card on this point is The Court of St James’s: if the royals are using it then it’s good enough for me. (There is an argument that St James could be considered a name from antiquity, being as old as Jesus, but in practice this is simply not the case.)

There is a school of thought that takes the position that, if the last ’s’ makes an ’s’ sound, an apostrophe at the end is enough; if it makes a ‘z’ sound, then an additional ’s’ is required.  This makes it more of a style point than one of grammar since both are technically correct.  My preference is still as stated.

This all means that, unexpectedly enough, the barber is the only one with unimpeachable linguistic credentials.  That is, of course, if they intended to identify themselves as the barber of the parish or dedicate their tonsorial skills to St James.

Multiple saints of the same name
St James the Less and St James the Just, for example – would be identified as “SS James the Less and James the Just” according to the traditions of the church.  Had they not been canonised of course, they would simply be ‘the Jameses’. The trouble comes if they bought a car together…

That’s why they serve drinks on planes

Proclaimed on the tannoy at my local airport:

This is the last and final call for passenger Jones…

Not to be outdone, the hostess on the plane demanded my “full and complete attention” for the safety announcement.  Is it some sort of competition, do you think?

Troubling scenes

 

My favourite kind of mistake

Tautology warning: if redundant language offends you, look away now.

The issue here: ‘other’ and ‘more’.  Since comparison is implied by using the word ‘more’ you don’t need to specify that you are referring to ‘other’ cards (suggested re-write: ‘no loyalty card in the UK is more generous!’).  If you are really wedded to the inclusion of ‘other’, ‘more’ should be replaced with ‘as’.

I also take issue with ‘a great big 4 points’ since points are quantifiable as opposed to, say, a score of 4 points, where the score is singular thus in agreement with the hyperbole.

Grrrr.

Pedantry is the enemy of creative license

Shame on you, Andy Williams.

This has been like this for years

 

I finally had my camera on me as I walked past.  It has vexed me for nearly a decade.

No escape…

…even in Greece. And it was run by an English woman, too.

Sounds like an easy life.

And this is in a university.

Proof-readers’ strike continues

Repetition is not emphasis

I love tautologies; they are my favourite mistake. If something is pure, it goes without saying that it is undiluted. There are any number of other adjectives that could have been used here. Mind you, it is just karaoke: maybe one is enough.