Profit

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Does that mean that we should be anticipting some paradisiac content here? "Prof., it can't be so, can it?". On the other hand, might there be profits to be made from the marketing and distribution of apostrophes and their use/misuse?

Well Waterstone's made quite a profit from my many purchases, but Waterstones get very little of my custom.

[ahinton]

Well Waterstone's made quite a profit from my many purchases, but Waterstones get very little of my custom.

How come?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

How come?

They dropped the apostrophe from their stores - at around the time when the stores changed from a burgundy coloured background to a black one. They lost Alpie's custom along with the punctuation, I'm deducing.

[ahinton]

They dropped the apostrophe from their stores - at around the time when the stores changed from a burgundy coloured background to a black one. They lost Alpie's custom along with the punctuation, I'm deducing.

Ah, I see now; I missed that when I read Alpie's post! What's the betting that they neither changed his account number and details with them nor de- and re-registered themselves with Companies' House when they self-deapostrophised, though? That said, you'd think, wouldn't you, that a bookstore of all places would have at least some care about apostrophic usage?

[jean]

Companies House doesn't need an apostrophe if you regard Companies as a noun premodifier.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

That said, you'd think, wouldn't you, that a bookstore of all places would have at least some care about apostrophic usage?

They took considerable care to send people up ladders in order to remove the apostrophes at every one of their stores, but took less care to cover the resulting hole, and the resulting gap between the last two letters. The whole operation was sheer stupidity.

[ahinton]

Companies House doesn't need an apostrophe if you regard Companies as a noun premodifier.

I know, but it does if you don't and it's not certain whether or not it is supposed to! Its official name has no apostrophe (and I'm unsure if it ever did in years gone by) but a genetive implication could be thought to arise from the meaning "the house wherein companies are registered and where data on them and their directors is found", i.e. "the house of companies"; same goes for "companies' register", I presume. So there's not necessarily a right and wrong way of doing this as was/is the case with Waterstone(')s which, had they renamed it "Waters' Tomes", might have been more convincing...

[ahinton]

They took considerable care to send people up ladders in order to remove the apostrophes at every one of their stores, but took less care to cover the resulting hole, and the resulting gap between the last two letters. The whole operation was sheer stupidity.

Indeed - it certainly sounds quite ridiculous and one might wonder whose idea it had been; it would have been no better had they taken "considerable care to send people up ladder's in order to remove the apostrophe's at every one of their store's". Perhaps someone should publish a paper The Supererogatoriality of Commercial Apostrophectomy: How Blood But Not Water May Be Extracted From Stone(')s, although somehow I wouldn't expect to be able to find copies on any shelves throughout that store group...

[vinteuil]

... I gues's Alpen's Infonie prob's does' n't do busines's with Boots or Lloyds or Barclays...

[Richard Barrett]

oh dear

[ahinton]

... I gues's Alpen's Infonie prob's does' n't do busines's with Boots or Lloyds or Barclays...

But he might do so with Sainsburys...

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

... I gues's Alpen's Infonie prob's does' n't do busines's with Boots or Lloyds or Barclays...

yor ded rite

[Flosshilde]

They dropped the apostrophe from their stores - at around the time when the stores changed from a burgundy coloured background to a black one.

I haven't noticed that. There is an old-established stationers (should that have an apostrophe?) in Edinburgh called Waterstones - I would think that they have grounds for complaint, if not legal action.

[Flosshilde]

There's a park in Glasgow called Queens Park - it seems never to have had an apostrophe. Some claim that it's named for Queen Victoria - it's at the bottom of a street called Victoria Rd, & near a cluster of streets named after Albert, others that it's for Mary Queen of Scots, as it's close the the site of her final battle. Given the lack of apostrophe it's quite possible it was named for both.

(It's also a popular meeting place for gay men, but I don't think it was named for them.)

[french frank]

... I gues's Alpen's Infonie prob's does' n't do busines's with Boots or Lloyds or Barclays...

Not to mention … Harrods (He may feel able to insure with Lloyd's, however).

The established point seems to be that there is NO 'right' and 'wrong' in this: simply usage and wont - or in Alpie's case, won't.