Why is there an apostrophe in Earl's Court, but not in Barons Court!?

Answer 1

To understand this better, try using your name in both places:

David's Court - the Court belonging to David
David Court - the whole thing is the name of the place; it's just a Court called David

So in the cases of Earl's Court and Barons Court, Earl's Court is the Court that belongs to the Earl, and Barons Court is just a Court named Barons - probably because lots of Barons used to live there!

This should help

PS - some people are suggesting that Earl is one person whose court is was and Barons implies more than one person. If this were the case then it would be Barons' Court with a possessive apostrophe after the s.

Answer 2

What a load of useless replies! Why do people bother to respond to questions when they don't know the answer? Most of the 'answers' so far are exactly the kind of thing that give YA a bad name.

However, some of the responders are right in guessing that there's no good reason for the inconsistency.

Earls Court is mostly spelt without an apostrophe nowadays, but sources vary. It was the site of a manor house belonging to the earls of Oxford (and later to the earls of Warwick and Holland).

There was never a baron who lived at Barons Court. The name was made up by a property developer because the area was next door to Earls Court. That's no reason for it not to have an apostrophe but punctuation marks in place names do get lost over time. For example, what was once Arno's Grove is now pronounced as though it never had an apostrophe.

Answer 3

Earl's Court is the Court of the Earl and Barons Court is named after Barons

Answer 4

Earl's Court belonged to one individual (the Earl), whereas Barons Court implies more than one baron. On the other hand, Barons could have some bloke's name, e.g., George Barons. No doubt a Londoner will come up with the right answer.

Answer 5

Good question. Usually these names started out with apostrophes but they got dropped at some stage because most people, especially these days, don't know how to use apostrophes correctly. You will notice that the exhibition centre Earls Court doesn't take one, but the Tube station and suburb do. My fantasy (as a sad, pedantic ex-English teacher and now journalist) is to shin up the side of the exhibition building armed with a giant apostrophe and to stick it in the right place (no rude retorts now please!)

Answer 6

I guess because Earl's means more than one Earl
Barons is a name like Davis and you would need another S before you put in an apostrophe to make is Barons's or Davis's

that would be my guess! Doesn't mean itsright tht

Answer 7

Because it was the Court of the Earl and therefore the ' is possessive.

Barons is plural as it was where the Barons lived so is not 's

Answer 8

I have no idea but am wondering....have you spent too much time riding the tubes?!

I always wonder why no one gets on or off at Hatton Cross (at least, not on the times Ive been down that area of London!) Bxx

Answer 9

There probably shouldn't be an apostrophe.

I can't think how it could be gramatically correct.

Perhaps somebody made a gramatical mistake at some point and the name has been 'stuck' that way ever since.

Answer 10

Why the exclamation mark in Westward Ho!?