Add Grease to the Slippery Slope While You're at it!

If you have read The Bowl for any amount of time at all you know that I am completely against wasting time and money that can go to better causes. Well, now I'm torn. Here's your news story but of course as always I'll give you the skinny too.

Its a catastrophe for the apostrophe in Britain

Officials in Britain have removed apostrophes from their street signs. No more possessives will be part of the street name - even if the name of the street was possessive when it was named. Why? Because apparently councils all over England have been dedicating untold hours to debating whether they should keep the apostrophe or just let it go. The made a decision and eliminated the debate so that they good dedicate time to more important things.

I should be happy about this but I'm not. What about proper grammar? What about education? The most disturbing part of this story for me was the quote:

"Apostrophes denote possessions that are no longer accurate, and are not needed," he {Councilor Martin Mullaney} said. "More importantly, they 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."

I'm sorry? They aren't teaching apostrophes until high school in England? And why shouldn't EVERYONE strive for an A-level degree? Have education standards collapsed all over the globe?

I know I don't always use perfect grammar and punctuation here on my blog but I think I could still pass a high school English class. I think I still manage to put together coherent and content heavy pieces. For an elected official in what I hope is an influential position to blow off English grammar, is atrocious to me.

What next? We get rid of commas? (Not that I would mind. I always screw those up!) Are we going to drop the apostrophe in contractions too? Will we just start spelling everything phonetically?

Maybe I'm making a mountain out of a molehill but you decide. I'd love to hear your take on it!