A light-hearted Facebook post on a community group has sparked an animated discussion. It was uploaded alongside an image of a 'welcome to' sign onto the Relax St Annes on Sea online social media community.
The sign reads "St. Anne's on the Sea" along with the tagline "a Lancashire coastal gem". Note the inclusion of the apostrophe, a minor detail to some yet so very important to others.
The irony is not lost on the group, which is dedicated to the town and its residents. In fact, the post directly addresses a recent message which "pointed out" the name of the town is "wrong" on the page.
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The page concedes that the "official" name of the town is St. Anne's on the Sea. Notice that includes punctuation, further clarifying that this is why there is a St. Anne's on the Sea Town Council.
However, they further explain that it became "common practice" to drop the punctuation along with 'the' to shorten it to St Annes on Sea. or simply 'St Annes'. The post concluded: "As it is part of the marketing and navigational term 'Lytham St Annes', the most important thing is to remember that it is a separate town, and whatever you call it, it's much loved."
What is your stance on the town's name? Take our poll
The post has so far garnered more than 550 likes and almost 100 comments. They ranged from staunch sticklers for a detail to traditionalists who carried down a preferred name through family generations. While other residents carried much more relaxed and open-minded views and some chimed in with their thoughts on other Lancashire town names.
One commenter said: "My recently deceased aunt always insisted that our lovely town is St Anne’s On The Sea".
Another waded in and brought some further grammatical input to the colourful conversation: "St Anne's with an apostrophe is the abbreviated name for the church from which the town gets its name. From a grammar point of view, it's wrong to write the town like that.
"The town isn't owned or dedicated to anyone so there is no possessive."
Another's argument centred around train tickets, with "Lytham St Annes" not recognised in self-service machines. Finally, there's another age-old local qualm bubbling alongside this, and it is that 'Lytham' is very much a separate place.
"I was born in Lytham and to me it’s always been, Lytham and then St Anne’s (posh name included on Sea), with Ansdell and Fairhaven between the two," a commenter wrote.
We'll leave you with our favourite comment of the lot: "Tourist to bus driver "Is this Lytham St Annes?" "No. This is St Annes, Lytham is the next town." This went on for a few minutes, Tourist still confused decided to get off at St Annes anyway (to me, it's St Anne's on the sea)."
What is your stance or do you not care? Let us know in the comments
