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.

(from The Guardian)

It seems not at all surprising that Britons would mount incandescent and effective campaigns against the desire of various authorities to remove apostrophes from their street names. An Englishman’s home, and hence his address, is his castle and all.

But it did surprise me that here, in techno-AI-infused 2024, the stated rationale for doing so is because computer databases don’t handle them well. Even though my professional life leads me to find this very plausible, it’s still a bit embarrassing.

I suppose grammatical error-riddled street signs would grate on me a little too, if I’m being entirely honest.