What Martha wants, Martha gets.

When I brought up the fact that Birmingham, England, banished apostrophes from their street signs, I forgot to mention one little fact.

America banished them as well.

According to the United States Geological Survey (where the geospatial fun never stops on usgs.gov!), our government banished them long ago. The U.S. Board on Geographic Names wiped the apostrophe clean in 1890. These great scientific minds decided to play fast and loose with grammar back in 1890, BUT said places could keep their possessive "s"--just not the apostrophe showing what that "s" is actually doing there. Yeah. Sure. That makes a ton of sense.

(Little known fun fact: President Benjamin Harrison (huh?) created the U.S. Board on Geographic Names. In a four year term in which Harrison (who's that?) was an complete failure (who's he?), Benjie made sure to bat a thousand and keep up with his futility for the next 109 years.)

In typical American style, we apparently make random exceptions to this apostrophe banishment. There are five places throughout America in which the good ol' boys at the U.S. Board of Geographic Names have decided that English geeks can keep their apostrophes. They are, in order:

1.) Martha's Vineyard (1933): Apparently Buffy and Giles down on the island didn't like how their beloved apostrophe was taken away. After "extensive" local campaigning (a.k.a.: bribe money from one politician to another, who are we kidding?), Martha could lay claim to her Vineyard once again.

2.) Ike's Point (1944): This is down in New Jersey. The ruling in 1944 states that "it would be unrecognizable otherwise." Personally, I don't even recognize it with the apostrophe.

3.) John E's Pond (1963): A pond in Rhode Island, which was granted its apostrophe because otherwise it would be "confused with the nearby John S Pond." All I know if that the locals in little Rhody need to be a little more creative with their pond names.

4.) Carlos Elmer's Joshua View (1995): Located in Arizona, it was allowed its apostrophe because the "Joshua" refers to the Joshua trees that Carlos Elmer was apparently viewing. The Arizona geographic poobahs asked for the apostrophe so people could remember that this Joshua is actually the tree. Ummm...maybe include the actual word "tree" in there, too? That might help. Just a suggestion.

5.) Clark's Mountain (2002): In Oregon, it was granted its apostrophe at the request of the state of Oregon as a visual point for Lewis and Clark during their expedition. As we can see, Lewis totally gets the shaft here. The man can't even get a nearby bush named after him.

According to the U.S. Board of Geographic Names, the whole elimination of apostrophes is because "the need to imply possession or association no longer exists." Riiight. As Barbara Wallraff--a language nerd of the highest order who writes for the Atlantic Monthly--states on her own website, why even have these names to begin with? If the Board says the "possession" isn't important, then tell Martha to take a hike altogether. Just call it a vineyard. Just call Clark's Mountain a mountain. Otherwise, why make weird rules altogether?

In reality, why are scientists dictating English language rules? This is the equivalent of English majors deciding scientific rules don't exist on a whim. You know what, to hell with gravity. I've decided that rule doesn't exist any longer. And the four laws of thermodynamics? Boooring. I'm eliminating that, too. Ohm's Law regarding electrical currents? I'll shine a light on all of us and wipe that law clean from the books, too. And I don't want to hear from scientists that humans can't fly. One word: Superman. Don't even tell me he wasn't human, because he entirely looked it to me. And we all know the eyes don't lie.