Pedants forgive Waterstones over apostrophe

And other stories from the stranger side of life

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Waterstones dropped the apostrophe in 2012
(Image credit: Loop Images/UIG via Getty Images)

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.

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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 news site. He is also the author of a number of non-fiction books.