For grammar and punctuation nerds only

I think I got it right now. Thank you, solbond.

St. Andrew owns the town - thus St. Andrews (with the 's' added). Then it's the town that owns the golf course.

Wait a minute! If St. Andrew owns the town and the town owns the golf course, doesn't St. Andrew own the golf course?

I am getting a headache here!

In the US, we would typically say: Baltimore Municipal Golf Course

Much rarer would be something like: Baltimore's Golf Course

Cheers!
Tired

That's probably as near as you are going to get, but just to round off, when you talk about a saint, there is no dot after 'St'. You are calling the poor old martyr Street Andrew, in which case nobody would notice if you add a final 's;', apostrophise it or move it to Baltimore.

" but just to round off, when you talk about a saint, there is no dot after 'St'. "

Not quite correct, as any search of saints will testify. But the town of St Andrews does not retain the 'stop .' in its' name .

If you search a reliable source (like any dictionary) you'll see that it is correct. (No apostrophe on "its name" by the way.)

Well, solbond, it turns out it depends where you are! See this article about full stops and abbreviations:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_stop

About a third of the way down, it states:

In American English, the common convention is to include the period after all such abbreviations.[23]

The explanation below comes from OxfordDictionaries.com:

3. If an abbreviation consists of the first and last letters of a word, the American rule is to include a period at the end:

Mr.
Dr.
St.

4. The British norm, however, is not to use a period at the end:

Mr
Dr
St

5. If the abbreviation consists only of the first part of a word, then you should put a period at the end:

Wed. [= Wednesday]
Dec. [= December]

"If you search a reliable source (like any dictionary) you'll see that it is correct. (No apostrophe on "its name" by the way.)"
This seems to be a peculiarly British rule though. And recent, as I have old books , printed in UK, using the St. form.
The Irish practice certainly aligns with the US in using St.

I have never seen "Dickens's" before and would have told you that's incorrect (because it has nothing to do with religious figures, but with whether or not the name ends with an s). However, I looked it up to be sure, and it turns out both forms are correct, so you can choose.

I would favour "Dickens' " though, because I'm probably not alone in never having seen the other form used before and assuming it's incorrect

As for 1990s vs 1990's, the former is correct in British English and the latter would have been correct in the past in American English. I'm not sure if the practice has changed more recently.

Anyway, I wouldn't judge a person as harshly on incorrect use of 's, than I would when an author writes "should of" or "would of". Those make me cringe!

@DianaMiller

Right. We more accomplished writers know that the correct forms are "shoulda" and "woulda."

Unrelated, but I discovered something new today! Because of the pronunciation, I had always thought this expression was written 'just desserts' but is is 'just deserts' meaning 'something you deserve'. I imagine other people knew that already, but quite handy on a spanking site!

solbond, it's fairly clear that people on your side of the pond take a more minimalistic approach to punctuation than on our side. That is, you use fewer periods and commas than we use.

Nevertheless, one of my pet peeves is the failure to use commas in direct address. I mean commas save lives! Look:

Let's eat grandma!

Let's eat, grandma!

Capitalization is another of my pet peeves. A failure to rigorously enforce rules can totally change the meaning of a sentence: Look at these two identical sentences except for a single capital letter:

I had to help my Uncle Jack off a horse.

I had to help my Uncle jack off a horse.


Cheers!
Tired