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www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/9007692/Waterstones-drops-its-apostrophe.html

Waterstone's dropping the '. A comment from the Apostrophe Protection Society. Doom and gloom predictions about the end of this vital piece of punctuation. Without it, the meaning of the word/s in question changes, doesn't it, so why would any reasonably minded person be happy to see it go?
A sad day for pedants everywhere.

I was wearing my own linguistic black armband, until I heard Michael Rosen (I'm not worthy) talking about it on Radio 4. He pointed out that the names of shops don't actually mean anything, and that "Harrods" is so called because it went through the same punctuation upheaval about 100 years ago.

As a pedant, I don't like shop names with apostrophes anyway, as they don't make sense in isolation- Waterstone's what?- Waterstone's Shop? Waterstone's Chain? Waterstone's Empire? Waterstone's Indeterminate Retail Entity?

"J Sainsbury" made complete sense; "Sainsbury's" to which they have dumbed it down, does not.

IMHO.

of course they need apostrophes.

sainsbury's is the chain belonging to mr sainsbury