Filed under: books, business, creativity, humour, jokes, life, Rants, stories, swearing, work, writing | Tags: apostrophes, death of the apostrophe, lynne truss, proper syntax, waterstones
Some fucking dick in the Waterstone’s marketing department thinks the apostrophe is an inconvenience in the digital age.
Yeah sure it is in a url, but we all know that urls don’t need punctuation and everyone, even Lynne Truss, will live with that.
However, to use that as an excuse to rebrand Waterstone’s as Waterstones is absurd.
It’s a fucking bookshop.
It should be the last bastion of proper syntax for fuck sake.
It is utterly unforgiveable.
It’s like the Driving Standards Agency hiring blind people to take driving tests.
Before you know it we’ll have section’s for biographys, comic’s, childrens book’s, and busine’ss section’s.
Bastards.
Or is that bastards’ or bastards or bastard’s or bas’tards or bas’tard’s or bas’tard’s’
I give up. In apoplexy.
Like this:
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Don’t even get me started. It’s a bloody disgrace. As if getting rid of their 3 for 2 fiction deal wasn’t bad enough.
I hate stuff like this. ‘Toys R Us’ fills me with rage. At least I never have to go into the hellish place. But Waterstone’s?!
Oh dear.
Comment by bloggingbacktowriting January 12, 2012 @ 6:33 pmI love how passionate you are about grammar, it makes me angry and I’ve never even been to Waterstone’s. You’re so right though, they’re killing the language that they’re essentially trying to preserve between spines and on pages.
Comment by Cassie January 12, 2012 @ 8:21 pmTouch of the Victor Meldrew’s there.
Comment by will atkinson January 13, 2012 @ 10:13 amToo fucking right.
Comment by markgorman January 13, 2012 @ 10:35 amYou could take the view that when Tim Waterstone started the chain they were indeed Waterstone’s but now he doesn’t own them so they aren’t his possessions any more, there are just lots of them. Would that make them Waterstones?
Comment by Jon January 14, 2012 @ 12:33 pmI was going to say something very similar to this. In fact that’s the very reason they give for the change in their official statement.
Link to the Waterstones press office: http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/pages/press-office/100000004/
I for one fully support the apostrocide in this case.
Comment by adjectivedave January 19, 2012 @ 7:12 pm