Blog
THURSDAY, 19 JANUARY 2012
http://planetcoms.blogspot.com
Waterstones and its apostrophe - catastrophe or just
typography?
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
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
old Mr Tim Waterstone's bookshop that opened in 1982 in the Old Brompton
Road. Waterstones is an evolving, innovative, coffee drinking, own kindle
SATURDAY, 7 JANUARY 2012
http://planetcoms.blogspot.com
Do you go for a Merry or a Happy Christmas greeting?
Get it right for 2012
2011 Christmas heralded a new season of attacks on the English language in my household. But who is right?
I can be one of the greatest language rule breakers when I choose. Yet even I struggle to embrace the new strain of Christmas sofa slump-chat that has emerged from my teenagers' happy obsession with programmes like 'Friends' and 'Two and a Half Men'. For Hark! We have heralded the birth of a whole new style of Anglo-US Yuletide greetings.
Squeaks of "What are we doing on Christmas?" found me churlishly grunting "Don't you mean - what are you we doing for Christmas Day?". Yells of "Where are you going for New Year?" made me bark back "It's called New Year's Eve over here". And "Leave a cookie out for Santa" produced a jolly retort of "He's called Father Christmas in this country and he likes biscuits". Read more