North Yorkshire Council admits apostrophe error on 'Gerrit in't bin' posters after backlash

The signs are part of a anti-littering campaign across North Yorkshire Credit: North Yorkshire Council

A council in Yorkshire says it will change the punctuation on its new marketing campaign after a backlash over a misplaced apostrophe.

North Yorkshire Council put up posters at tourist hotspots in the the county to discourage people from littering, with the slogan "Gerrit in't bin", a colloquial way of saying "get it in the bin".

But the playful nod towards Yorkshire language has prompted irritation from the Yorkshire Dialect Society, which said it should be written correctly - with the apostrophe after, rather than before, the letter 't', to indicate the missing letters from the word "the".

The society warned the error is indicative of the decline of the Yorkshire dialect.

The council says it will now change the punctuation on its downloadable signs and online marketing but that the physical signs will remain the same.

North Yorkshire Council’s executive member for highways and transport, Cllr Keane Duncan, said: "Punctuating Yorkshire dialect appears to be causing us a bit of a headache here at North Yorkshire Council.

"While ‘in’t’ features in some dialect dictionaries, we are happy to take the lead of the Yorkshire Dialect Society who are the authority on this subject."

Cllr Duncan continued: "While we might be unsure about where the apostrophe belongs, we are certain there is just one place for litter in North Yorkshire, the bin."

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