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North Yorkshire apostrophe fans demand road signs with nowt taken out

Council says punctuation mark must go to suit computer databases, but grammar purists see signs of falling standards

A council has provoked the wrath of residents and linguists alike after announcing it would ban apostrophes on street signs to avoid problems with computer systems.

North Yorkshire council is ditching the punctuation point after careful consideration, saying it can affect geographical databases.

The council said all new street signs would be produced without one, regardless of whether they were used in the past.

Some residents expressed reservations about removing the apostrophes, and said it risked “everything going downhill”. They urged the authority to retain them.

Sam, a postal worker in Harrogate, a spa town in North Yorkshire, told the BBC that signs missing an apostrophe – such as the nearby St Mary’s Walk sign that had been erected in the town without it – infuriated her.

“I walk past the sign every day and it riles my blood to see inappropriate grammar or punctuation,” she said.

Though the updated St Mary’s sign had no apostrophe, someone had graffitied an apostrophe back on to the sign with a marker pen, which the former teacher said was “brilliant”.

She suggested the council was providing a bad example to children who spend a long time learning the basics of grammar only to see it not being used correctly on street signs.

Dr Ellie Rye, a lecturer in English language and linguistics at the University of York, said apostrophes were a relatively new invention in our writing and, often, context allows people to understand their meaning.

“If I say I live on St Mary’s Walk, we’re expecting a street name or an address of some kind.”

She said the change would matter to people who spend a long time teaching how we write English but that it was “less important in [verbal] communication”.

North Yorkshire council said it was not the first to opt to “eliminate” the apostrophe from street signs. Cambridge city council had done the same, before it bowed to pressure and reinstated the apostrophe after complaints from campaigners.

There was also an outcry from residents when Mid Devon district council considered making it a policy to do away with apostrophes to “avoid potential confusion”.

A spokesperson from North Yorkshire council added: “All punctuation will be considered but avoided where possible because street names and addresses, when stored in databases, must meet the standards set out in BS7666.

“This restricts the use of punctuation marks and special characters (eg apostrophes, hyphens and ampersands) to avoid potential problems when searching the databases as these characters have specific meanings in computer systems.”

• North Yorkshire
• Local government
• North of England

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U.K. Police Charge 3 Men With Aiding Hong Kong Intelligence Service

The three appeared in court on Monday after being arrested under Britain’s National Security Act. Eight other people detained in the case have been released.

By Stephen Castle

Reporting from London

Three men have been charged with assisting the Hong Kong intelligence service, the London Metropolitan Police said on Monday, following an investigation in which arrests and searches were carried out across England.

The three people charged under Britain’s National Security Act were identified as Chi Leung (Peter) Wai, 38, of Staines-upon-Thames; Matthew Trickett, 37, of Maidenhead, and Chung Biu Yuen, 63, of Hackney, East London.

“The foreign intelligence service to which the above charges relate is that of Hong Kong,” the police said in a statement .

The three men appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Monday. As court proceedings are now active, English reporting restrictions apply, limiting what can be reported about the case.

Dominic Murphy, head of the Metropolitan Police’s counterterrorism command, said the investigation was continuing. “While these offenses are concerning, I want to reassure the public that we do not believe there to be any wider threat to them,” he said.

Eleven people in total were detained during the investigation. Eight men and a woman were arrested on May 1 in Yorkshire, in northern England, by counterterrorism police officers. The following day, a man was arrested in London and another in Yorkshire. Among the allegations is that entry was forced into a residential address in Britain on May 1.

The eight people who were not charged have been released from custody. The three who face charges did not enter pleas but were granted bail ahead of their next scheduled court appearance on May 24.

In Britain, China, which includes Hong Kong, has been blamed for several recent cases of spying. “All those accusations are groundless and slanderous,” the Chinese Embassy in London said in a statement .

As for the latest allegations, the statement, referring to the Hong Kong Special Administration Region by its initials, said, “The Chinese side firmly rejects and strongly condemns the U.K.’s fabrication of the so-called case and its unwarranted accusation against the HKSAR government and has made serious representations to the U.K. side on the matter.”

The men’s court appearance coincided with a warning from Prime Minister Rishi Sunak that the country was facing some of the most dangerous years it has ever known.

In a speech in London on Monday morning, Mr. Sunak described China, Russia, North Korea and Iran as a newly assertive “axis of authoritarian states.”

“More will change in the next five years than in the last 30. I’m convinced that the next few years will be some of the most dangerous yet most transformational our country has ever known,” Mr. Sunak said, adding: “Our country stands at a crossroads.”

With a general election expected in the second half of the year, Mr. Sunak’s speech was highly political in tone, seeking to draw dividing lines between his Conservative Party and the opposition Labour Party, which is well ahead in opinion polls. Britain, Mr. Sunak said, would be less safe if Labour’s leader, Keir Starmer, became prime minister.

“Over the next few years, from our democracy to our economy to our society — to the hardest questions of war and peace — almost every aspect of our lives is going to change,” he said.

In a statement, Pat McFadden, Labour’s campaign coordinator, responded that “the only way to stop the chaos, turn the page and start to renew is with a change of government.”

Stephen Castle is a London correspondent of The Times, writing widely about Britain, its politics and the country’s relationship with Europe. More about Stephen Castle