Quote Originally Posted by simonj View Post
No, change is traditionally very slow, for valid reasons. With the advent of technology and it's influences on language then changes are happening much faster than previously. There's not really any way to stop that so it's probably better to embrace it and add your own influence to it.
Yes, and the destruction of the English language by Internet-speak is also ruining people's ability to express themselves clearly and precisely, and consequently their ability to think clearly and precisely. For a short text message, sometimes you might have to type "hey were r u" since you want to express yourself quickly and without fussing too much with the numerical keypad on your cell phone. However, if that's the only way you know how to write, good luck expressing a complex and nuanced argument in a five-page long essay.

So, no, I am not going to embrace the way technology is changing language. I am not going to accept the presence of emoticons in letters, I am not going to rejoice over the shrinking vocabulary of English speakers, and I am not going to celebrate the growing inability to use simple yet crucial clarifying grammatical devices in formal writing.

Also, "it's" means "it is," and "its" means "belonging to it."

And here is the important distinction: it is indeed a terrible idea and I don't believe for a minute that any city officials believe it's a great idea to get rid of apostrophes permanently. The article does make it sound that way though, but news articles like this usually need some sort of an angle and these guys took the "omgosh their ruining the langwige!" approach.
This is often the case. I will also admit that the inclusion or omission of apostrophes in British place names is rather capricious and arbitrarily set by tradition rather than any generally applicable rule.

However, one city official is quoted as saying, "More importantly, they [apostrophes] confuse people. If I want to go to a restaurant, I don't want to have an A-level (high school diploma) in English to find it." He's speaking as if apostrophes are some esoteric device known only to the most highly educated and gifted people of the population. They shouldn't be.