North Yorkshire Council to phase out apostrophe use on street signs

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Reason for change & standards debate

  • Several commenters trace the decision to British Standard BS 7666 and related guidance for address/street “gazetteers.”
  • Excerpts from guidance show a key nuance: editors shouldn’t add punctuation that isn’t in the official name, but punctuation is allowed when it is part of the designated name (e.g., “Dr Newton’s Way”).
  • This leads many to argue the council is misreading the standard or using it as a convenient excuse.
  • A commercial body (GeoPlace) is cited as “preferring” data without punctuation for machine readability and emergency-system search, which commenters broadly criticize as weak justification.

Technical criticisms (databases, encoding, SQL injection)

  • Many argue modern databases and software can handle apostrophes and other special characters if queries are parameterized and encodings handled properly.
  • The move is widely mocked as a sign of insecure or poorly designed systems (“tell me you’re vulnerable to SQL injection…”).
  • Others note that apostrophes can complicate CSV, exports, multiple apostrophe characters, and fuzzy search, but still see removal as an overreaction.
  • Some suggest simple schema solutions: a machine-readable key plus a separate “sign name” with full punctuation.

Language, names, and inclusivity

  • Strong concern that dropping apostrophes disrespects people whose names include them (e.g., many Irish surnames) and may prevent accurately naming streets after such people.
  • Similar issues are noted for diacritics and non-ASCII characters; some government systems still cannot handle accents or non-Latin scripts.
  • There is an extended side-thread arguing over correct possessive forms like “Thomas’” vs. “Thomas’s,” illustrating how contentious and fluid apostrophe rules already are.

Precedents & signage practice

  • Australia’s long-standing removal of apostrophes from official place names is cited as precedent, with mixed day‑to‑day adherence and some confusion (e.g., “Princes” vs. “Princess”).
  • Some note that many UK areas already omit apostrophes on signs; others lament the loss as harming literacy and respect for language.

Data standards, licensing, and open data

  • Paid and closed standards (BS 7666, ISO specs, smartcard standards) draw criticism; several argue that anything mandatory for public bodies should be freely accessible.
  • OpenStreetMap is mentioned as taking physical signs as “ground truth,” so any signage change propagates to widely used open data.
  • Some worry about a broader pattern: instead of fixing tools and standards, authorities bend physical reality and language to fit brittle software.