According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word apostrophe comes from the Greek apostrophes, meaning 'turning away'. An apostrophe symbolises letters that have been 'turned away', or discarded, in order to make a word shorter or easier to pronounce.
Turning away from turning away
Waterstones neé Waterstone's announced its decision on 12 Jan 2012 to turn away from its apostrophe. A decision which could potentially create two apostrophes - as in Waterstone"s, which would complicate the issue and of course, be totally incorrect.
Waterstones want to be a simple text/email friendly brand and I think they're right. No one thinks of this huge national chain of book superstores as dear Mr Tim Waterstone's bookshop that opened in 1982 in the Old Brompton Road. Waterstones is an evolving, innovative, coffee drinking, own kindle producing brand.
There was an instant outcry from John Richards, of the Apostrophe Protection Society. Predictably unhappy with Waterstones, he complained: “You would really hope that a bookshop is the last place to be so slapdash with English.”
Waterstones’ managing director James Daunt said "Waterstones without an apostrophe is, in a digital world of URLs and email addresses, a more versatile and practical spelling. It also 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."
Wise Mr Daunt neatly avoided the whole problem with his other famous brand of bookshops, 'Daunt Books'
McDonald's, Sainsbury's and Levy's stick with their apostrophes. But Harrods and Barclays don't bother. Because most importantly this is a brand. It's a name and people do what they like with their names. The purpose of a brand name is to be memorable.
With the recent growth of Amazon as publishers and booksellers, there is a grave danger that Waterstones won't last forever. So let them do everything they can to be remembered. It was Mr Daunt who described Amazon "They never struck me as being a sort of business in the consumer's interest. They're a ruthless, money-making devil."
Will children be confused as they learn their grammar?
Not one bit. It's just a name. Show me a child who is troubled by a missing apostrophe, yet accepts inconsistencies like Spudulike and ToysRUs without a murmur.
According to Wikipedia, water stones are sharpening stones that are used to grind and hone the edges of steel tools and implements. I say butt the two words together and we are sharpening and honing a useful digital brand name.
In the process of change, Waterstones have abandoned their last modernisation of their name's lowercase spelling and reverted to their former font (Baskerville) and capital W. Apparently this is to promote a sense of authority and confidence, so traditionalists gain something.
A great response to Waterstones' decision to let the apostrophe go came from Waterstones of Oxford Street, whose Twitter account posted the photo below accompanied by a series of tweets about the apostrophe’s last day at work with the company.
Meanwhile, the successful fashion store which calls itself Apostrophe doesn't even have the punctuation mark in its title, so they add one on sideways.Now that's what I call brand personality.
