What's next? Thespacebetweenwords?

Government officials in Birmingham, England, have voted to ban apostrophes in road signs. According to an Associated Press story, the officials spent so much time during meetings trying to figure out which place names needed apostrophes, they couldn't get anything else done.

I love the wordplay used by the AP writer, Meera Silva:

LONDON – On the streets of Birmingham, the queen's English is now the queens English.

England's second-largest city has decided to drop apostrophes from all its street signs, saying they're confusing and old-fashioned.

But some purists are downright possessive about the punctuation mark.

I wouldn't say I'm possessive. Fanatical, maybe. But not possessive.