For heavens's sake

Since at least 2004, St. Thomas' Hospital has styled itself with one final s and one hanging apostrophe. It's a grammatically wrong decision. Thomas' is pronounced with three syllables - Thom-ass-ses. Oxford Dictionaries: ‘With personal names that end in —s: add an apostrophe plus s when you would naturally pronounce an extra s if you said the word out loud.’

In 2004, the hospital management tried to argue is that the name refers to more than one St Thomas. The hospital was originally dedicated to St Thomas Becket, but that was changed by royal proclamation in 1538 to St Thomas the Apostle. Illogical. The plural of Thomas is Thomases, so the possessive plural would be spelt Thomases’.

The BBC ought, probably, to synchronise with the hospital's preferred name. However irritating that might be, we'd get some consistency. Journalistically, they could end this more quickly by removing reporter from a site where no-one is issuing any news.