And here I go again. This time commenting on an article about the twitter debate raging about Aprentice runner up, Luisa Zissman's, lack of a grasp of punctuation. Specifically correct use of the apostrophe. See the piece here Many of her followers on twitter would like her fired of course but here's my thoughts.
"You fools. She has been very clever by the look of it. No better way to court
publicity than generating a debate even if at your own expense. In any case
shouldn't it be "Bakers" Toolkit?! I have the same problem with my business.
Should it be Mr. Books Bookshop (as it is) or Mr. Book's or Mr. Books' The young
shrewd entrepreneur is right. At the end of the day it's a trade name so she
should go with whatever looks right. Apostrophes are very over rated these days
anyhow...."
What do you think?
4 comments:
Shouldn't that be ap'rentice?
Mr Books Bookshop is correct. If the owners name was Mr Book then his bookshop would be Mr Book's Bookshop. McDonald's is correct as the original outlet was started by Mr McDonald. Boot's the Chemist was correct, rather stupidly they have rebranded themselves as Boots, incorrect, as now we could expect a shop with the name Boots to be selling footwear. Boot's however would convey the shop is owned (or was owned) by Mr Boot, closer examination would reveal it to be a chemist. ( A thank you here to TMBC for adding the apostrophe into King's road).
Grammatically of course if the bookshop was owned by Mr Book and his brother also Mr Book, then their shop would be Mr Books' Bookshop. Easy! Far from being overrated the humble apostrophise is vital in English for conveying the correct information.
I recall recently a brief article quoting an English teacher suggesting it is so difficult to get schoolchildren to understand the use of the apostrophise, that they (apostrophies) should be ignored altogether! The reply being, "if its so difficult to teach, the teacher must surly be hopeless and better off not teaching English"
As with my previous posting, Boots to a foreign visitor, must be a footwear store. Whereas Boot's is the name of a shop, (which happens to be a Chemist). Easy, the humble apostrophise is mightly powerful!
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