An article in this month’s Atlantic refers in passing to only four place names in the US with apostrophes in 'em [and gives one as Martha’s Vineyard].
Is this true ?
and if true, Why ? and What are the other three ?
off the top of my head…
Major’s Place, Nevada (near Ely on US 50)
Hart’s Location, New Hampshire (in the white mountains; was once (and maybe still is) known for being the place with the earliest poll-opening time on election day (“Hart’s Location, first in the nation”))
I also recall places called “Ruby’s Inn” and “Mack’s Inn” but I can’t recall what state they’re in.
ok, now I’m looking at a map.
There are places called O’Brien (near shasta lake)and O’Neals (near Fresno) and Tom’s Place (on US 395 north of Bishop), all in California.
Did the article mention apostrophes generally or specifically possessive-type apostrophes? If the latter, then O’Brien and O’Neals wouldn’t count.
O’Neill, Nebraska
O’Fallon, Illinois
O’Donnell, Texas
D’Hanis, Texas
Land O’Lakes, Wisconsin
Friar’s Point, Mississippi
O’Reilly, Mississippi
Lee’s Corner, South Dakota
…many people spell the 50th state as “Hawai’i”
And there’s “Bent’s Old Fort,” a historic park in Colorado-- it’s not a town, but neither is Martha’s Vineyard in the OP.
…and I retract “Hart’s Location” from before… on my map there’s no apostrophe.
Do you have a link to the article?
Is Ong’s Hat, New Jersey, one of them?
I thought Dixville Notch, NH claimed this distinction?
[/hijack]
I’m afraid I don’t have a cite yet, but this might point you in the right search direction:
Regarding the Devils River in Texas, I understood that it used to be the Devil’s River**, which would make more sense, except that the USGS (who oversees topo maps and approves names placed thereon) generally disallows the use of possesives for geographic features. This may, however, apply more to streams, hills, mountains, etc., than cities because I can also add to the list:
Carl’s Corner, Texas,
which is an officialy incorporated former truck stop.
A cursory look at my atlas reveals that places like St. Catherines Island, GA, Pawleys Island, SC, Nags Head, NC, Harpers Ferry, WV, Dares Beach, MD, etc. are all spelled without apostrophes, even though logic dictates they were all named with a possessive in mind. Perhaps the postal service frowns on apostrophes and has consciously removed them. I would wager that if you went back and looked at old maps, you would see the places mentioned above depicted with apostrophes at some point in their cartographic history.
Why Martha’s Vineyard should get fovored treatment is another question. Probably has something to do with someone who wielded influence within the naming bureaucracy who liked apostrophes!
The following web site is somewhat instructive, although according to my atlas, ST. Simons Island, GA has no apostrophe.
http://www.mapping.com/tests/quizapos.html
It would have been helpful if I’d included the url for the “somewhat instructive” website!
And believe it or not, there’s a web site (http://geonames.usgs.gov/pppdgn.html) for the US Board of Geographic names, from which this direction is taken:
Chapter 5
EDITORIAL GUIDELINES
WRITING MARKS
Apostrophes suggesting possession or association are not to be used within the body of a proper geographic name (Henrys Fork: not Henry’s Fork). The word or words that form a geographic name change their connotative function and together become a single denotative unit. They change from words having specific dictionary meaning to fixed labels used to refer to geographic entities. The need to imply possession or association no longer exists. Thus, we write “Jamestown” instead of “James’ town” or even “Richardsons Creek” instead of “Richard’s son’s creek.” The whole name can be made possessive or associative with an apostrophe at the end as in “Rogers Point’s rocky shore.” Apostrophes may be used within the body of a geographic name to denote a missing letter (Lake O’ the Woods) or when they normally exist in a surname used as part of a geographic name (O’Malley Hollow).
Still, the above gives no clue as to why Martha’s Vineyard or Ike’s Point (but not Pikes Peak???) should be spared apostrophe assassination!
If the people of the locality are willing to fight for it, then they can keep their apostrophe. People don’t usually care about creeks, rivers, etc., but may raise enough of a stink to keep from renaming their town.
Hart’s Location and Dixville Notch open their polling places at the same time at 12:01 am on the morning of any federal election or primary. NH State law allows the polling places to close as soon as all registered voters have cast their ballots. Needless to say, all registered votes in these unorganized places show up as a matter of pride. At last count, the population of Dixville Notch was 33 (26 registered) and Hart’s Location 30. Dixville Notch is somewhat more remote and is an old and famous resort community, which likely explains why it receives the lion’s share of attention on primary and election days. In the past election, Dixville notch got it’s returns in faster than Hart’s Location with Bush garnering 21 votes and Gore 5.
Ooops… I forgot. There was one vote for Nader, which of course, cost Gore the election.
The explanation of the answer is incorrect, based on the wording of the question and the description of the answer.
First, Martha’s Vineyard is an island and not a “place name” as defined in the original question, i.e. an inhabited place. Try to send mail to Martha’s Vineyard. it’ll be rejected unless you specifcy Edgartown or West Tisbury or something… check http://www.usps.gov/cgi-bin/zip4/ctystzip
Second, a simple query of the GNIS database produced by the USGS and the Board of Geographic Names shows the following 13 inhabited places with apostrophes in their names:
Bois D’Arc, Missouri
D’Hanis, Texas
Land O’ Lakes, Wisconsin
O’Brien, Florida
O’Brien, Oregon
O’Neill, Nebraska
Port O’Brien, Alaska
O’Brien, Texas
O’Neals, California
O’Kean, Arkansas
O’Fallon, Missouri
O’Donnell, Texas
Port O’Connor, Texas
If you want to include things like islands and mountains, the list is much larger, but the original question points to inhabited places like towns, villages, and cities.
I used the “concise” compilation of 40,000 place names and not the complete listing of several million, leaving out places like “Dix’s Grant, NH” and “O’Briens Corner, MA” et al.
I could try other criteria, but it’s clear to me that the original claim is patently false.
Oh by the way, more on the Hart’s Location / Dixville Notch, from CNN Feb, 1996:
I can’t believe no one has mentioned one of the largest apostrophe’d towns: Coeur d’Alene, ID.
At one time the US Board on Geographic Names tried to suppress all apostrophes, as well as diacritics in general, with less than complete success. For instance, Coeur d’Alene used to have a circumflex on the second E which it lost during this purge, but it managed to keep the apostrophe. Other towns lost their apostrophe for a while, but then managed to regain them. Example: D’lo, MS was spelled Dlo for a while.
As for Pikes Peak, I thought the state of Colorado passed a law decreeing it would not have an apostrophe.