The other **** one I've noticed quite a lot is #firstworldproblems
I think that's called successful market penetration.
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Waterstone's abandon their apostrophe.
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Posted 4 months ago #
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well, in this time of austerity and hardship on the high streets it's good to see that waterstones have so little to worry about they can direct their energy to the task of deciding whether to apostrophise their name or not.
Posted 4 months ago # -
well, in this time of austerity and hardship on the high streets it's good to see that waterstones have so little to worry about they can direct their energy to the task of deciding whether to apostrophise their name or not.
If it gets more traffic to their website - for reasons mentioned above - then that's a good thing, n'est-ce pas? I suspect they're already past worrying much about the high street stores
Posted 4 months ago # -
They're wrong, obviously, as, like you say, both are grammatically correct.
I think you'll find I suggested the first is an Americanism, rather than endorsing its use.
But if you apply a narrow, rules-out-of-context, thinking to them you get the incorrect versions, just as applying narrow, out of context rules to 'Waterstones' makes them think 'Waterstone's' is grammatical.
If you apply the rules incorrectly you get the incorrect version. Just as applying the rules incorrectly makes you think "Waterstones" is correct. Not really a terribly good analogy if that's the point you were trying to make.
Posted 4 months ago # -
The French have the right idea. All accents and punctuation are ignored when using capital letters.
Posted 4 months ago # -
Just as applying the rules incorrectly makes you think "Waterstones" is correct.
I'm not applying any rules. I'm saying that the rules do not apply. They could call it 'Water'stones' or 'Waterstoneses', and it'd still be correct.Posted 4 months ago # -
I'm off to Robert Dyas's and then John Lewis's followed by Clarke's
Posted 4 months ago # -
Q. Is "waterstones" a plural noun, someone's shop or a business brand?
A. It's a brand, so adding an apos. just confuses matters IMO. Unless the business is marketing itself as someone's shop.
Posted 4 months ago # -
Also, I don't get the fascination with the fact they are a book shop so "should know better". Do you think they check every novel that comes through the door to make sure the prose is grammatically correct before putting it on the shelves? They'd have a field day with jack Kerouac.
Posted 4 months ago # -
And what do riff-raff like that know of Waitrose anyway?
They do big loaves of nice bread and bottles of milk for just ten pence on Saturday evenings.
Posted 4 months ago # -
It's all irrelevant since Waterstones will cease to exist in 10 years anyway, having been beaten into submission by Amazon.
You think they've got as much as 10 years left? I'd give them 2 years max and thats optimistic, not least because all their work to break the Net Book Agreement back in the 90's has come back to bite them as thats what now allows Amazon to effectively pay for their customers to buy books, which they can afford to keep doing until there are no other book sellers (and even publishers) left. But more ominously for them... after the riots last summer my friend got home from holiday to find every shop on her local high st smashed and looted - except Waterstone's which was completely untouched, with even its apostrophe intact. That to me spells doom, not only because even in a complete mindless free-for-all nobody wanted their stuff for nowt when theres bottled water and value rice up for grabs, but because they were so irrelevant it wasn't even fun to smash the windows.
Posted 4 months ago # -
But more ominously for them... after the riots last summer my friend got home from holiday to find every shop on her local high st smashed and looted - except Waterstone's which was completely untouched, with even its apostrophe intact. That to me spells doom, not only because even in a complete mindless free-for-all nobody wanted their stuff for nowt when theres bottled water and value rice up for grabs, but because they were so irrelevant it wasn't even fun to smash the windows.
Wisdom.
Posted 4 months ago # -
Changing the signs at Waterstone's is like buying new earrings for Pat Butcher.
Posted 4 months ago # -
But more ominously for them... after the riots last summer my friend got home from holiday to find every shop on her local high st smashed and looted - except Waterstone's which was completely untouched, with even its apostrophe intact. That to me spells doom, not only because even in a complete mindless free-for-all nobody wanted their stuff for nowt when theres bottled water and value rice up for grabs, but because they were so irrelevant it wasn't even fun to smash the windows.
Or maybe nobody was actually smashing windows for fun, just to get at what was inside. I don't suppose Waterstone
's will be all that bothered that they don't have potential customers amongst the rioters.Posted 4 months ago # -
I wonder if they're going to turn them upside down and use them on their e-commas website?
Posted 4 months ago #
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