You are viewing your 1 free article this month. Login to read more articles.
The chairman of the Apostrophe Society has called Waterstones' dropping of its apostrophe "just plain wrong", as the national press reacted to the change.
The move was reported in the Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph and on BBC Radio 4's "Today" programme this morning (12th January), with Apostrophe Society chairman John Richards reported as saying: "It's just plain wrong. It's gramatically incorrect. If Sainsbury's and McDonald's can get it right, then why can't Waterstones? You would really hope that a bookshop is the last place to be so slapdash with English."
The Telegraph said the brand reverting to its former style and typeface, using the Baskerville serif font and reinstating the capital "W", was a "consolation for grammar traditionalists", whereas the Mail said dropping the apostrophe "appeared to be a slight to Mr Waterstone, who founded the chain in 1982 with one store in Kensington".
In the Mail's online story, it also reported Twitter users commenting on the move, with one quoted as saying: "Seeing as Waterstones thinks the public is too stupid to manage apostrophes, maybe it's time they just stopped selling books."
M.d. James Daunt called the move "a more versatile and practical spelling" in a "digital world of URLs and email addresses", which "reflects an altogether truer picture of our business today which, while created by one, is now built on the continued contribution of thousands of individual booksellers".