Waterstones: Thats odd.

Some people love grammar. Really, really adore it. They can be called grammar whores, a term that sounds cruel out of context but is often used by those who feel the term applies to themselves. Although depending on how much you love grammar you might think of yourself simply as "literate."

In any case, you have to know your crowd. For example, you'd think that people who read widely might be more likely to care about things like grammar. People who frequent bookstores, for instance.

Which must be why Waterstone's has decided to drop the apostrophe from their name and present themselves as Waterstones--a word that means "more than one Waterstone" rather than "the bookshop that was started by Mr. Waterstone."

Wait, no. That makes no sense. A bookstore would cater to the literate, not defy them. Right? Hmm.

I can't judge them too harshly. A search of my blog reveals that more often than not I have spelled it "Waterstones." To be fair I didn't realize it was incorrect, having never heard of Mr. Waterstone until now, but for those who realize the error (ie. those in charge of the company) you'd think they'd make an effort. At least as much of an effort as McDonald's, which is not known for its grammar whores and could have changed its name to Mickey Deez years ago. Oh well.

In loosely-related news, the BBC has published a list of 100 year old predictions that did and did not come true. One of the losers was "No more C, X, or Q." So they thought the apostrophe would survive, but not the letters C, X, or Q. Interesting.

For the record, there are 39 Cs in this post, 4 Qs... and 1 X. (plus that one.)

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Photo: www apostrophe by Rob Watling on flickr