Pedants forgive Waterstones over apostrophe

Waterstones dropped the apostrophe in 2012

(Image credit: Loop Images/UIG via Getty Images)

published 4 September 2023

More than 10 years after Waterstones “enraged pedants everywhere” by dropping the apostrophe from its name, it has been “forgiven”, said The Times. The bookshop chain made the alteration in 2012 to make the spelling easier in the digital age, but the move prompted criticism, with some getting “terribly cross”, the paper noted. However, the Apostrophe Protection Society has now said that it is “entirely comfortable” with the move.

Lion causes traffic jam

Commuters in Karachi, Pakistan were held up when a lion escaped and began roaming about the road. The beast “escaped from a private vehicle”, said Fox News, and was on the loose for about two hours before it was captured. Local police said the lion was in transit when it made its great escape during rush-hour traffic. “Our teams rushed here immediately,” said wildlife inspector Mukhtyar Soomro. “Praise be to Allah, it is with us safely and no one is in danger now.”

The creature photographed at Loch Ness in August 2018 is not the Loch Ness monster, an expert has said. Paranormal investigator Hayley Stevens has said the strange object photographed “spinning and rolling” in the water is “most likely” a sturgeon. “Sturgeon can grow very large – the Atlantic and European sturgeon, which are native to the UK, can grow up to five metres in length,” Stevens wrote on her science blog, Hayley is a Ghost. Others have speculated that the image is anything from two otters playing, to bin bags and a deflated dinghy, The Telegraph reported.

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Chas Newkey-Burden has been part of The Week Digital team for more than a decade and a journalist for 25 years, starting out on the irreverent football weekly 90 Minutes, before moving to lifestyle magazines Loaded and Attitude. He was a columnist for The Big Issue and landed a world exclusive with David Beckham that became the weekly magazine’s bestselling issue. He now writes regularly for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Metro, FourFourTwo and the i new site. He is also the author of a number of non-fiction books.

Lion causes traffic jam

Loch Ness monster picture ‘most likely’ a sturgeon

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