On 1 January 2009 Mike Palij wrote: >As an ignorant U.S. citizen I have to ask..."
Taking my cue from Jonathan Miller in "Beyond the Fringe" (for you older folk), is "ignorant" here a description or a definition. -:) >... what do they do with names like O'Hara? Or do >the British do not name streets after the Irish? > If they use Ohara, I wonder if anyone realizes that that > is name that can be either Irish or Japanese. There is, of course, no possibility of ambiguity if I write "Shepherds Bush Road" instead of "Shepherds Bush Road", or "St Georges Square" instead of "St George's Square", which is not the case with Ohara/O'Hara. Anyway, checking my London street guide I see O'Meara, O'Neill, O'Shea. What they intend to do about such names in Birmingham (a quick online check brings up, e.g., O'keeffe Close in that city) remains to be seen - they may well get an onslaught of complaints from the numerous Irish people, and those of Irish descent, who live in Britain if the new Birmingham Council policy makes no exceptions! But Mike's example of the ambiguity in the case of Ohara links to the (minor) controversy about dropping the use of apostrophes. (Ever since George Bernard Shaw advocated dropping the apostrophe there have been people who have argued for its disappearance.) While it is easy to find numerous instances where dropping the apostrophe creates no problems in understanding, there are enough situations where it is crucial to justify retaining it. An article in yesterday's Sunday Telegraph gave these, taken from Lynne Truss's book *Eats, shoots and leaves*: "Those smelly things are my brothers." "The dog's like my Dad." I rest my case. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
