Bristol Stomp

 The New Yorker magazine runs little fillers at the bottom of pages, and one recurrent category they use is "There Will Always Be An England" in which they print amusing tales of a tipsy vicar or some such.  I'm descended from the English people and I enjoy their stories and idiosyncrasies, and here is one that appeals to my British blood:

There's a hubbub in Bristol and it has to do with an "apostrophe catastrophe" at a certain landmark. There is a place over there, a nature reserve called "one of the most spectacular wildlife spots in the city," but they argue about whether to call it Trooper's Hill, Troopers' Hill and Troopers Hill.

And the great English thing is, the debate has been going on for over 200 years!

The latest round is a sign put up by Bristol Parks, a subgroup of the Bristol City Council, which spells it out "Public Footpath to Trooper's Hill."

Putting it this way, it matches an old chimney sign that dates back to the 1790s and 1800s.

But there are two other signs around saying "Troopers" Hill and "Troopers'" Hill.

The support group known as Friends of Troopers Hill, a volunteer group that works with the Bristol City Council to maintain and preserve the area. They use no apostrophe at all.

Rob Acton-Campbell said: "The apostrophe has never been fixed - with all three options having been used on maps in the 1800s. Some of the early minutes of Friends of Troopers Hill meetings use the apostrophe before or after the s, but I think we settled on not using it mainly because, although there wasn't social media then (2003), we did want a website and knew we couldn't have an apostrophe in a domain name - and none of the options could be said to be wrong.

"Troopers Hill is a really important site for biodiversity with 83 different species of bees having been recorded on the site, there are also fantastic views. I hope that the publicity around this issue will inspire more people to visit."

Another group spokesperson says, "It's slightly amusing that the council over the last few years has put up signs probably, sort of two years between them - and each time they've come up with a slightly different arrangement with the apostrophe.

"It's grammatically correct if there was more than one trooper then it should be apostrophe after the 's - but it doesn't fit with what we do at Friends of Troopers Hill."

 

Even so, someone came up with an 1826 map that uses no apostrophe at all, and someone came up with a map from 1840 that called the reserve Trooper's Hill... and yet a third map from the 1880s puts it as Troopers' Hill.

The council is straddling the lines right down the middle: "We're grateful that a member of the public with an eagle eye for correct grammar has brought this to our attention.

"Generally our policy would be to reflect the place name and road name spelling on the council's pinpoint mapping derived from Ordnance Survey base maps.

"In this case 'Troopers Hill' the place name has no apostrophe, but the road name 'Troopers' Hill Road' has an apostrophe... Therefore there is room for a bit of ambiguity."

People have taken to social media to debate the issue, with some agreeing with the choice of Friends of Troopers Hill; others are not quite as sure.

One person agreed: "TROOPERS HILL. No apostrophe.

"The place doesn't belong to a trooper nor to several trooper. Apostrophe means possession, no possession no apostrophe.

I admire people who will continue to aver their side of a debate for years and years. Over on these rocky shores, we have to deal with the lack of apostrophizing on "Wegmans" and "Caesars Palace." I've never been to the latter place, but every time I shop in the former, I want to take a Magic Marker and add the missing '.