Earl's Court and Barons Court

[Busaholic]

My apologies if this has been raised before, but Danny Finkelstein in his 'Times' column yesterday was asking, why the apostrophe in the former and not the latter? He is inviting a response, so if anyone knows the answer.... No prizes!

 

[essexjohn]

Does this help? Earl's Court and Barons Court apostrophes

 

[Peter Mugridge]

That surely then gives rise to the question of why the name is in two words instead of one?

 

[duncanp]

Funnily enough I travelled through both stations on Saturday and noticed this.

Presumably this is because Barons is the plural of Baron and therefore doesn't require an apostrophe, whereasEarl's is the possessive of Earl, which therefore means that an apostrophe is required.

I don't know why this is the case, and I suppose the finer points of English grammar are lost on many people. (one of my pet peeves is the use of "should of" instead of "should have", or "their" instead of "there" or "they're)

 

[MrB]

I believe something similar exists at St. James's Park where it has been spelt as St. James Park, St. James' Park & St. James's Park throughout its time as a station. There is in fact still a roundel at the station which reads St. James' Park.

Mod note - I'm not sure how to resize images so apologies for the large size.

 

[duncanp]

You also have St James Street in Walthamstow.

No apostrophe there, so it is (strictly speaking) the street that is named after St James rather than the street which belongs to St James.

 

[Bald Rick]

How very odd, I pointed this out to a few people two weeks ago.

However, it wasn't original thought, and I hope Mr Finklestein isn't claiming it is either. Tony Hawks first wrote about it in one of his books (or possibly a stand up routine) at least 15 years ago.

 

[Busaholic]

How very odd, I pointed this out to a few people two weeks ago.

However, it wasn't original thought, and I hope Mr Finklestein isn't claiming it is either. Tony Hawks first wrote about it in one of his books (or possibly a stand up routine) at least 15 years ago.

Well, if you have a regular column you have to fill it with something, however unoriginal.